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diff --git a/27188-0.txt b/27188-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b02d64c --- /dev/null +++ b/27188-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8221 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wonder, by J. D. Beresford + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Wonder + +Author: J. D. Beresford + +Release Date: November 7, 2008 [EBook #27188] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WONDER *** + + + + +Produced by David Clarke, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + +THE WONDER + + + + + BY J. D. BERESFORD + + THESE LYNNEKERS + THE EARLY HISTORY OF JACOB STAHL + A CANDIDATE FOR TRUTH + THE INVISIBLE EVENT + THE HOUSE IN DEMETRIUS ROAD + + GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + NEW YORK + + + + + THE + WONDER + + + BY + + J. D. BERESFORD + AUTHOR OF "THESE LYNNEKERS," "THE STORY OF JACOB STAHL," ETC. + + + [Device] + + + NEW YORK + GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1917, + BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + +Transcriber's Note: + + Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Dialect + and variant spellings have been retained. Greek text appears as + originally printed. + + + + + TO + MY FRIEND AND CRITIC + HUGH WALPOLE + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PART ONE + + MY EARLY ASSOCIATIONS WITH GINGER STOTT + + CHAPTER PAGE + I. THE MOTIVE 11 + + II. NOTES FOR A BIOGRAPHY OF GINGER STOTT 22 + + III. THE DISILLUSIONMENT OF GINGER STOTT 58 + + + PART TWO + + THE CHILDHOOD OF THE WONDER + + IV. THE MANNER OF HIS BIRTH 71 + + V. HIS DEPARTURE FROM STOKE-UNDERHILL 92 + + VI. HIS FATHER'S DESERTION 107 + + VII. HIS DEBT TO HENRY CHALLIS 118 + + VIII. HIS FIRST VISIT TO CHALLIS COURT 143 + + INTERLUDE 149 + + + THE WONDER AMONG BOOKS + + IX. HIS PASSAGE THROUGH THE PRISON OF KNOWLEDGE 155 + + X. HIS PASTORS AND MASTERS 179 + + XI. HIS EXAMINATION 193 + + XII. HIS INTERVIEW WITH HERR GROSSMANN 217 + + XIII. FUGITIVE 229 + + + PART THREE + + MY ASSOCIATION WITH THE WONDER + + XIV. HOW I WENT TO PYM TO WRITE A BOOK 235 + + XV. THE INCIPIENCE OF MY SUBJECTION TO THE WONDER 247 + + XVI. THE PROGRESS AND RELAXATION OF MY SUBJECTION 267 + + XVII. RELEASE 284 + + XVIII. IMPLICATIONS 299 + + XIX. EPILOGUE: THE USES OF MYSTERY 305 + + + + +PART ONE + +MY EARLY ASSOCIATIONS WITH GINGER STOTT + + + + +PART ONE + +MY EARLY ASSOCIATIONS WITH GINGER STOTT + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE MOTIVE + + +I + +I could not say at which station the woman and her baby entered the +train. + +Since we had left London, I had been struggling with Baillie's +translation of Hegel's "Phenomenology." It was not a book to read among +such distracting circumstances as those of a railway journey, but I was +eagerly planning a little dissertation of my own at that time, and my +work as a journalist gave me little leisure for quiet study. + +I looked up when the woman entered my compartment, though I did not +notice the name of the station. I caught sight of the baby she was +carrying, and turned back to my book. I thought the child was a freak, +an abnormality; and such things disgust me. + +I returned to the study of my Hegel and read: "For knowledge is not the +divergence of the ray, but the ray itself by which the truth comes to +us; and if this ray be removed, the bare direction or the empty place +would alone be indicated." + +I kept my eyes on the book--the train had started again--but the next +passage conveyed no meaning to my mind, and as I attempted to re-read it +an impression was interposed between me and the work I was studying. + +I saw projected on the page before me an image which I mistook at first +for the likeness of Richard Owen. It was the conformation of the head +that gave rise to the mistake, a head domed and massive, white and +smooth--it was a head that had always interested me. But as I looked, my +mind already searching for the reason of this hallucination, I saw that +the lower part of the face was that of an infant. My eyes wandered from +the book, and my gaze fluttered along the four persons seated opposite +to me, till it rested on the reality of my vision. And even as my +attention was thus irresistibly dragged from my book, my mind clung with +a feeble desperation to its task, and I murmured under my breath like a +child repeating a mechanically learned lesson: "Knowledge is not the +divergence of the ray but the ray itself...." + +For several seconds the eyes of the infant held mine. Its gaze was +steady and clear as that of a normal child, but what differentiated it +was the impression one received of calm intelligence. The head was +completely bald, and there was no trace of eyebrows, but the eyes +themselves were protected by thick, short lashes. + +The child turned its head, and I felt my muscles relax. Until then I had +not been conscious that they had been stiffened. My gaze was released, +pushed aside as it were, and I found myself watching the object of the +child's next scrutiny. + +This object was a man of forty or so, inclined to corpulence, and +untidy. He bore the evidences of failure in the process of becoming. He +wore a beard that was scanty and ragged, there were bald patches of skin +on the jaw; one inferred that he wore that beard only to save the +trouble of shaving. He was sitting next to me, the middle passenger of +the three on my side of the carriage, and he was absorbed in the pages +of a half-penny paper--I think he was reading the police reports--which +was interposed between him and the child in the corner diagonally +opposite to that which I occupied. + +The man was hunched up, slouching, his legs crossed, his elbows seeking +support against his body; he held his clumsily folded paper close to his +eyes. He had the appearance of being very myopic, but he did not wear +glasses. + +As I watched him, he began to fidget. He uncrossed his legs and hunched +his body deeper into the back of his seat. Presently his eyes began to +creep up the paper in front of him. When they reached the top, he +hesitated a moment, making a survey under cover, then he dropped his +hands and stared stupidly at the infant in the corner, his mouth +slightly open, his feet pulled in under the seat of the carriage. + +As the child let him go, his head drooped, and then he turned and looked +at me with a silly, vacuous smile. I looked away hurriedly; this was not +a man with whom I cared to share experience. + +The process was repeated. The next victim was a big, rubicund, +healthy-looking man, clean shaved, with light-blue eyes that were +slightly magnified by the glasses of his gold-mounted spectacles. He, +too, had been reading a newspaper--the _Evening Standard_--until the +child's gaze claimed his attention, and he, too, was held motionless by +that strange, appraising stare. But when he was released, his surprise +found vent in words. "This," I thought, "is the man accustomed to act." + +"A very remarkable child, ma'am," he said, addressing the thin, +ascetic-looking mother. + + +II + +The mother's appearance did not convey the impression of poverty. She +was, indeed, warmly, decently, and becomingly clad. She wore a long +black coat, braided and frogged; it had the air of belonging to an older +fashion, but the material of it was new. And her bonnet, trimmed with +jet ornaments growing on stalks that waved tremulously--that, also, was +a modern replica of an older mode. On her hands were black thread +gloves, somewhat ill-fitting. + +Her face was not that of a country woman. The thin, high-bridged nose, +the fallen cheeks, the shadows under eyes gloomy and retrospective--these +were marks of the town; above all, perhaps, that sallow greyness of the +skin which speaks of confinement.... + +The child looked healthy enough. Its great bald head shone resplendently +like a globe of alabaster. + +"A very remarkable child, ma'am," said the rubicund man who sat facing +the woman. + +The woman twitched her untidy-looking black eyebrows, her head trembled +slightly and set the jet fruit of her bonnet dancing and nodding. + +"Yes, sir," she replied. + +"Very remarkable," said the man, adjusting his spectacles and leaning +forward. His action had an air of deliberate courage; he was justifying +his fortitude after that temporary aberration. + +I watched him a little nervously. I remembered my feelings when, as a +child, I had seen some magnificent enter the lion's den in a travelling +circus. The failure on my right was, also, absorbed in the spectacle; he +stared, open-mouthed, his eyes blinking and shifting. + +The other three occupants of the compartment, sitting on the same side +as the woman, back to the engine, dropped papers and magazines and +turned their heads, all interest. None of these three had, so far as I +had observed, fallen under the spell of inspection by the infant, but I +noticed that the man--an artisan apparently--who sat next to the woman +had edged away from her, and that the three passengers opposite to me +were huddled towards my end of the compartment. + +The child had abstracted its gaze, which was now directed down the aisle +of the carriage, indefinitely focussed on some point outside the window. +It seemed remote, entirely unconcerned with any human being. + +I speak of it asexually. I was still uncertain as to its sex. It is true +that all babies look alike to me; but I should have known that this +child was male, the conformation of the skull alone should have told me +that. It was its dress that gave me cause to hesitate. It was dressed +absurdly, not in "long-clothes," but in a long frock that hid its feet +and was bunched about its body. + + +III + +"Er--does it--er--can it--talk?" hesitated the rubicund man, and I grew +hot at his boldness. There seemed to be something disrespectful in +speaking before the child in this impersonal way. + +"No, sir, he's never made a sound," replied the woman, twitching and +vibrating. Her heavy, dark eyebrows jerked spasmodically, nervously. + +"Never cried?" persisted the interrogator. + +"Never once, sir." + +"Dumb, eh?" He said it as an aside, half under his breath. + +"'E's never spoke, sir." + +"Hm!" The man cleared his throat and braced himself with a deliberate +and obvious effort. "Is it--he--not water on the brain--what?" + +I felt that a rigour of breathless suspense held every occupant of the +compartment. I wanted, and I know that every other person there wanted, +to say, "Look out! Don't go too far." The child, however, seemed +unconscious of the insult: he still stared out through the window, lost +in profound contemplation. + +"No, sir, oh no!" replied the woman. "'E's got more sense than a +ordinary child." She held the infant as if it were some priceless piece +of earthenware, not nursing it as a woman nurses a baby, but balancing +it with supreme attention in her lap. + +"How old is he?" + +We had been awaiting this question. + +"A year and nine munse, sir." + +"Ought to have spoken before that, oughtn't he?" + +"Never even cried, sir," said the woman. She regarded the child with a +look into which I read something of apprehension. If it were +apprehension it was a feeling that we all shared. But the rubicund man +was magnificent, though, like the lion tamer of my youthful experience, +he was doubtless conscious of the aspect his temerity wore in the eyes +of beholders. He must have been showing off. + +"Have you taken opinion?" he asked; and then, seeing the woman's lack of +comprehension, he translated the question--badly, for he conveyed a +different meaning--thus, + +"I mean, have you had a doctor for him?" + +The train was slackening speed. + +"Oh! yes, sir." + +"And what do _they_ say?" + +The child turned its head and looked the rubicund man full in the eyes. +Never in the face of any man or woman have I seen such an expression of +sublime pity and contempt.... + +I remembered a small urchin I had once seen at the Zoological Gardens. +Urged on by a band of other urchins, he was throwing pebbles at a great +lion that lolled, finely indifferent, on the floor of its playground. +Closer crept the urchin; he grew splendidly bold; he threw larger and +larger pebbles, until the lion rose suddenly with a roar, and dashed +fiercely down to the bars of its cage. + +I thought of that urchin's scared, shrieking face now, as the rubicund +man leant quickly back into his corner. + +Yet that was not all, for the infant, satisfied, perhaps, with its +victim's ignominy, turned and looked at me with a cynical smile. I was, +as it were, taken into its confidence. I felt flattered, undeservedly +yet enormously flattered. I blushed, I may have simpered. + +The train drew up in Great Hittenden station. + +The woman gathered her priceless possession carefully into her arms, and +the rubicund man adroitly opened the door for her. + +"Good day, sir," she said, as she got out. + +"Good day," echoed the rubicund man with relief, and we all drew a deep +breath of relief with him in concert, as though we had just witnessed +the safe descent of some over-daring aviator. + + +IV + +As the train moved on, we six, who had been fellow-passengers for some +thirty or forty minutes before the woman had entered our compartment, we +who had not till then exchanged a word, broke suddenly into general +conversation. + +"Water on the brain; I don't care what any one says," asserted the +rubicund man. + +"My sister had one very similar," put in the failure, who was sitting +next to me. "It died," he added, by way of giving point to his instance. + +"Ought not to exhibit freaks like that in public," said an old man +opposite to me. + +"You're right, sir," was the verdict of the artisan, and he spat +carefully and scraped his boot on the floor; "them things ought to be +kep' private." + +"Mad, of course, that's to say imbecile," repeated the rubicund man. + +"Horrid head he'd got," said the failure, and shivered histrionically. + +They continued to demonstrate their contempt for the infant by many +asseverations. The reaction grew. They were all bold now, and all wanted +to speak. They spoke as the survivors from some common peril; they were +increasingly anxious to demonstrate that they had never suffered +intimidation, and in their relief they were anxious to laugh at the +thing which had for a time subdued them. But they never named it as a +cause for fear. Their speech was merely innuendo. + +At the last, however, I caught an echo of the true feeling. + +It was the rubicund man who, most daring during the crisis, was now bold +enough to admit curiosity. + +"What's your opinion, sir?" he said to me. The train was running into +Wenderby; he was preparing to get out; he leaned forward, his fingers on +the handle of the door. + +I was embarrassed. Why had I been singled out by the child? I had taken +no part in the recent interjectory conversation. Was this a consequence +of the notice that had been paid to me? + +"I?" I stammered, and then reverted to the rubicund man's original +phrase, "It--it was certainly a very remarkable child," I said. + +The rubicund man nodded and pursed his lips. "Very," he muttered as he +alighted, "Very remarkable. Well, good day to you." + +I returned to my book, and was surprised to find that my index finger +was still marking the place at which I had been interrupted some fifteen +minutes before. My arm felt stiff and cramped. + +I read: "... and if this ray be removed, the bare direction or the empty +place would alone be indicated." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +NOTES FOR A BIOGRAPHY OF GINGER STOTT + + +I + +Ginger Stott is a name that was once as well known as any in England. +Stott has been the subject of leading articles in every daily paper; his +life has been written by an able journalist who interviewed Stott +himself, during ten crowded minutes, and filled three hundred pages with +details, seventy per cent. of which were taken from the journals, and +the remainder supplied by a brilliant imagination. Ten years ago Ginger +Stott was on a pinnacle, there was a Stott vogue. You found his name at +the bottom of signed articles written by members of the editorial staff; +you bought Stott collars, although Stott himself did not wear collars; +there was a Stott waltz, which is occasionally hummed by clerks, and +whistled by errand-boys to this day; there was a periodical which lived +for ten months, entitled _Ginger Stott's Weekly_; in brief, during one +summer there was a Stott apotheosis. + +But that was ten years ago, and the rising generation has almost +forgotten the once well-known name. One rarely sees him mentioned in the +morning paper now, and then it is but the briefest reference; some such +note as this "Pickering was at the top of his form, recalling the finest +achievements of Ginger Stott at his best," or "Flack is a magnificent +find for Kent: he promises to completely surpass the historic feats of +Ginger Stott." These journalistic superlatives only irritate those who +remember the performances referred to. We who watched the man's career +know that Pickering and Flack are but tyros compared to Stott; we know +that none of his successors has challenged comparison with him. He was a +meteor that blazed across the sky, and if he ever has a true successor, +such stars as Pickering and Flack will shine pale and dim in comparison. + +It makes one feel suddenly old to recall that great matinée at the +Lyceum, given for Ginger Stott's benefit after he met with his accident. +In ten years so many great figures in that world have died or fallen +into obscurity. I can count on my fingers the number of those who were +then, and are still, in the forefront of popularity. Of the others poor +Captain Wallis, for instance, is dead--and no modern writer, in my +opinion, can equal the brilliant descriptiveness of Wallis's articles in +the _Daily Post_. Bobby Maisefield, again, Stott's colleague, is a +martyr to rheumatism, and keeps a shop in Ailesworth, the scene of so +many of his triumphs. What a list one might make, but how uselessly. It +is enough to note how many names have dropped out, how many others are +the names of those we now speak of as veterans. In ten years! It +certainly makes one feel old. + + +II + +No apology is needed for telling again the story of Stott's career. +Certain details will still be familiar, it is true, the historic details +that can never be forgotten while cricket holds place as our national +game. But there are many facts of Stott's life familiar to me, which +have never been made public property. If I must repeat that which is +known, I can give the known a new setting; perhaps a new value. + +He came of mixed races. His mother was pure Welsh, his father a +Yorkshire collier; but when Ginger was nine years old his father died, +and Mrs. Stott came to live in Ailesworth where she had immigrant +relations, and it was there that she set up the little paper-shop, the +business by which she maintained herself and her boy. That shop is still +in existence, and the name has not been altered. You may find it in the +little street that runs off the market place, going down towards the +Borstal Institution. + +There are many people alive in Ailesworth to-day who can remember the +sturdy, freckled, sandy-haired boy who used to go round with the morning +and evening papers; the boy who was to change the fortunes of a county. + +Ginger was phenomenally thorough in all he undertook. It was one of the +secrets of his success. It was this thoroughness that kept him engaged +in his mother's little business until he was seventeen. Up to that age +he never found time for cricket--sufficient evidence of his remarkable +and most unusual qualities. + +It was sheer chance, apparently, that determined his choice of a career. + +He had walked into Stoke-Underhill to deliver a parcel, and on his way +back his attention was arrested by the sight of a line of vehicles drawn +up to the boarded fencing that encloses the Ailesworth County Ground. +The occupants of these vehicles were standing up, struggling to catch a +sight of the match that was being played behind the screen erected to +shut out non-paying sightseers. Among the horses' feet, squirming +between the spokes of wheels, utterly regardless of all injury, small +boys glued their eyes to knot-holes in the fence, while others climbed +surreptitiously, and for the most part unobserved, on to the backs of +tradesmen's carts. All these individuals were in a state of tremendous +excitement, and even the policeman whose duty it was to move them on, +was so engrossed in watching the game that he had disappeared inside the +turnstile, and had given the outside spectators full opportunity for +eleemosynary enjoyment. + +That tarred fence has since been raised some six feet, and now encloses +a wider sweep of ground--alterations that may be classed among the minor +revolutions effected by the genius of the thick-set, fair-haired youth +of seventeen, who paused on that early September afternoon to wonder +what all the fuss was about. The Ailesworth County Ground was not famous +in those days; not then was accommodation needed for thirty thousand +spectators, drawn from every county in England to witness the +unparallelled. + +Ginger stopped. The interest of the spectacle pierced his absorption in +the business he had in hand. Such a thing was almost unprecedented. + +"What's up?" he asked of Puggy Phillips. + +Puggy Phillips--hazarding his life by standing on the shiny, slightly +curved top of his butcher's cart--made no appropriate answer. +"Yah--_ah_--AH!" he screamed in ecstasy. "Oh! played! Pla-a-a-ayed!!" + +Ginger wasted no more breath, but laid hold of the little brass rail +that encircled Puggy's platform, and with a sudden hoist that lifted the +shafts and startled the pony, raised himself to the level of a +spectator. + +"'Ere!" shouted the swaying, tottering Puggy. "What the ... are yer rup +to?" + +The well-drilled pony, however, settled down again quietly to maintain +his end of the see-saw, and, finding himself still able to preserve his +equilibrium, Puggy instantly forgot the presence of the intruder. + +"What's up?" asked Ginger again. + +"Oh! Well _'it_, WELL 'IT!" yelled Puggy. "Oh! Gow on, gow on agen! Run +it _aht_. Run it AH-T." + +Ginger gave it up, and turned his attention to the match. + +It was not any famous struggle that was being fought out on the old +Ailesworth Ground; it was only second-class cricket, the deciding match +of the Minor Counties championship. Hampdenshire and Oxfordshire, old +rivals, had been neck-and-neck all through the season, and, as luck +would have it, the engagement between them had been the last fixture on +the card. + +When Ginger rose to the level of spectator, the match was anybody's +game. Bobby Maisefield was batting. He was then a promising young colt +who had not earned a fixed place in the Eleven. Ginger knew him +socially, but they were not friends, they had no interests in common. +Bobby had made twenty-seven. He was partnered by old Trigson, the +bowler, (he has been dead these eight years,) whose characteristic score +of "Not out ... 0," is sufficiently representative of his methods. + +It was the fourth innings, and Hampdenshire with only one more wicket to +fall, still required nineteen runs to win. Trigson could be relied upon +to keep his wicket up, but not to score. The hopes of Ailesworth centred +in the ability of that almost untried colt Bobby Maisefield--and he +seemed likely to justify the trust reposed in him. A beautiful late cut +that eluded third man and hit the fence with a resounding bang, nearly +drove Puggy wild with delight. + +"Only fifteen more," he shouted. "Oh! Played; pla-a-a-yed!" + +But as the score crept up, the tensity grew. As each ball was delivered, +a chill, rigid silence held the onlookers in its grip. When Trigson, +with the field collected round him, almost to be covered with a sheet, +stonewalled the most tempting lob, the click of the ball on his bat was +an intrusion on the stillness. And always it was followed by a deep +breath of relief that sighed round the ring like a faint wind through a +plantation of larches. When Bobby scored, the tumult broke out like a +crash of thunder; but it subsided again, echoless, to that intense +silence so soon as the ball was "dead." + +Curiously, it was not Bobby who made the winning hit but Trigson. "One +to tie, two to win," breathed Puggy as the field changed over, and it +was Trigson who had to face the bowling. The suspense was torture. +Oxford had put on their fast bowler again, and Trigson, intimidated, +perhaps, did not play him with quite so straight a bat as he had opposed +to the lob-bowler. The ball hit Trigson's bat and glanced through the +slips. The field was very close to the wicket, and the ball was +travelling fast. No one seemed to make any attempt to stop it. For a +moment the significance of the thing was not realised; for a moment +only, then followed uproar, deafening, stupendous. + +Puggy was stamping fiercely on the top of his cart; the tears were +streaming down his face; he was screaming and yelling incoherent words. +And he was representative of the crowd. Thus men shouted and stamped and +cried when news came of the relief of Kimberley, or when that false +report of victory was brought to Paris in the August of 1870.... + +The effect upon Ginger was a thing apart. He did not join in the fierce +acclamation; he did not wait to see the chairing of Bobby and Trigson. +The greatness of Stott's character, the fineness of his genius is +displayed in his attitude towards the dramatic spectacle he had just +witnessed. + +As he trudged home into Ailesworth, his thoughts found vent in a +muttered sentence which is peculiarly typical of the effect that had +been made upon him. + +"I believe I could have bowled that chap," he said. + + +III + +In writing a history of this kind, a certain licence must be claimed. It +will be understood that I am filling certain gaps in the narrative with +imagined detail. But the facts are true. My added detail is only +intended to give an appearance of life and reality to my history. Let +me, therefore, insist upon one vital point. I have not been dependent on +hearsay for one single fact in this story. Where my experience does not +depend upon personal experience, it has been received from the +principals themselves. Finally, it should be remembered that when I +have, imaginatively, put words into the mouths of the persons of this +story, they are never essential words which affect the issue. The +essential speeches are reported from first-hand sources. For instance, +Ginger Stott himself has told me on more than one occasion that the +words with which I closed the last section, were the actual words spoken +by him on the occasion in question. It was not until six years after the +great Oxfordshire match that I myself first met the man, but what +follows is literally true in all essentials. + +There was a long, narrow strip of yard, or alley, at the back of Mrs. +Stott's paper-shop, a yard that, unfortunately, no longer exists. It has +been partly built over, and another of England's memorials has thus been +destroyed by the vandals of modern commerce.... + +This yard was fifty-three feet long, measuring from Mrs. Stott's back +door to the door of the coal-shed, which marked the alley's extreme +limit. This measurement, an apparently negligible trifle, had an +important effect upon Stott's career. For it was in this yard that he +taught himself to bowl, and the shortness of the pitch precluded his +taking any run. From those long studious hours of practice he emerged +with a characteristic that was--and still remains--unique. Stott never +took more than two steps before delivering the ball; frequently he +bowled from a standing position, and batsmen have confessed that of all +Stott's puzzling mannerisms, this was the one to which they never became +accustomed. S. R. L. Maturin, the finest bat Australia ever sent to this +country, has told me that to this peculiarity of delivery he attributed +his failure ever to score freely against Stott. It completely upset +one's habit of play, he said: one had no time to prepare for the flight +of the ball; it came at one so suddenly. Other bowlers have since +attempted some imitation of this method without success. They had not +Stott's physical advantages. + +Nevertheless, the shortness of that alley threw Stott back for two +years. When he first emerged to try conclusions on the field, he found +his length on the longer pitch utterly unreliable, and the effort +necessary to throw the ball another six yards, at first upset his slowly +acquired methods. + +It was not until he was twenty years old that Ginger Stott played in his +first Colts' match. + +The three years that had intervened had not been prosperous years for +Hampdenshire. Their team was a one-man team. Bobby Maisefield was +developing into a fine bat (and other counties were throwing out +inducements to him, trying to persuade him to qualify for first-class +cricket), but he found no support, and Hampdenshire was never looked +upon as a coming county. The best of the minor counties in those years +were Staffordshire and Norfolk. + +In the Colts' match Stott's analysis ran: + + overs maidens runs wickets + 11·3 7 16 7 + +and reference to the score-sheet, which is still preserved among the +records of the County Club, shows that six of the seven wickets were +clean bowled. The Eleven had no second innings; the match was drawn, +owing to rain. Stott has told me that the Eleven had to bat on a dry +wicket, but after making all allowances, the performance was certainly +remarkable. + +After this match Stott was, of course, played regularly. That year +Hampdenshire rose once more to their old position at the head of the +minor counties, and Maisefield, who had been seriously considering +Surrey's offer of a place in their Eleven after two years' qualification +by residence, decided to remain with the county which had given him his +first chance. + +During that season Stott did not record any performance so remarkable as +his feat in the Colts' match, but his record for the year was +eighty-seven wickets with an average of 9·31; and it is worthy of notice +that Yorkshire made overtures to him, as he was qualified by birth to +play for the northern county. + +I think there must have been a wonderful _esprit de corps_ among the +members of that early Hampdenshire Eleven. There are other evidences +beside this refusal of its two most prominent members to join the ranks +of first-class cricket. Lord R----, the president of the H.C.C.C., has +told me that this spirit was quite as marked as in the earlier case of +Kent. He himself certainly did much to promote it, and his generosity in +making good the deficits of the balance sheet, had a great influence on +the acceleration of Hampdenshire's triumph. + +In his second year, though Hampdenshire were again champions of the +second-class counties, Stott had not such a fine average as in the +preceding season. Sixty-one wickets for eight hundred and sixty-eight +(average 14·23) seems to show a decline in his powers, but that was a +wonderful year for batsmen (Maisefield scored seven hundred and +forty-two runs, with an average of forty-two) and, moreover, that was +the year in which Stott was privately practising his new theory. + +It was in this year that three very promising recruits, all since become +famous, joined the Eleven, viz.: P. H. Evans, St. John Townley, and +Flower the fast bowler. With these five cricketers Hampdenshire fully +deserved their elevation into the list of first-class counties. +Curiously enough, they took the place of the old champions, +Gloucestershire, who, with Somerset, fell back into the obscurity of the +second-class that season. + + +IV + +I must turn aside for a moment at this point in order to explain the +"new theory" of Stott's, to which I have referred, a theory which became +in practice one of the elements of his most astounding successes. + +Ginger Stott was not a tall man. He stood only 5 ft. 5¼ in. in his +socks, but he was tremendously solid; he had what is known as a "stocky" +figure, broad and deep-chested. That was where his muscular power lay, +for his abnormally long arms were rather thin, though his huge hands +were powerful enough. + +Even without his "new theory," Stott would have been an exceptional +bowler. His thoroughness would have assured his success. He studied his +art diligently, and practised regularly in a barn through the winter. +His physique, too, was a magnificent instrument. That long, muscular +body was superbly steady on the short, thick legs. It gave him a +fulcrum, firm, apparently immovable. And those weirdly long, thin arms +could move with lightning rapidity. He always stood with his hands +behind him, and then--as often as not without even one preliminary +step--the long arm would flash round and the ball be delivered, without +giving the batsman any opportunity of watching his hand; you could never +tell which way he was going to break. It was astonishing, too, the pace +he could get without any run. Poor Wallis used to call him the "human +catapult"; Wallis was always trying to find new phrases. + +The theory first came to Stott when he was practising at the nets. It +was a windy morning, and he noticed that several times the balls he +bowled swerved in the air. When those swerving balls came they were +almost unplayable. + +Stott made no remark to any one--he was bowling to the groundsman--but +the ambition to bowl "swerves,"[1] as they were afterwards called, took +possession of him from that morning. It is true that he never mastered +the theory completely; on a perfectly calm day he could never depend +upon obtaining any swerve at all, but, within limits, he developed his +theory until he had any batsman practically at his mercy. + +He might have mastered the theory completely, had it not been for his +accident--we must remember that he had only three seasons of first-class +cricket--and, personally, I believe he would have achieved that complete +mastery. But I do not believe, as Stott did, that he could have taught +his method to another man. That belief became an obsession with him, and +will be dealt with later. + +My own reasons for doubting that Stott's "swerve" could have been +taught, is that it would have been necessary for the pupil to have had +Stott's peculiarities, not only of method, but of physique. He used to +spin the ball with a twist of his middle finger and thumb, just as you +may see a billiard professional spin a billiard ball. To do this in his +manner, it is absolutely necessary not only to have a very large and +muscular hand, but to have very lithe and flexible arm muscles, for the +arm is moving rapidly while the twist is given, and there must be no +antagonistic muscular action. Further, I believe that part of the secret +was due to the fact that Stott bowled from a standing position. Given +these things, the rest is merely a question of long and assiduous +practice. The human mechanism is marvellously adaptable. I have seen +Stott throw a cricket ball half across the room with sufficient spin on +the ball to make it shoot back to him along the carpet. + +I have mentioned the wind as a factor in obtaining the swerve. It was a +head-wind that Stott required. I have seen him, for sport, toss a +cricket ball into the teeth of a gale, and make it describe the +trajectory of a badly sliced golf-ball. This is why the big pavilion at +Ailesworth is set at such a curious angle to the ground. It was built in +the winter following Hampdenshire's second season of first-class +cricket, and it was so placed that when the wickets were pitched in a +line with it, they might lie south-west and north-east, or in the +direction of the prevailing winds. + + +V + +The first time I ever saw Ginger Stott, was on the occasion of the +historic encounter with Surrey; Hampdenshire's second engagement in +first-class cricket. The match with Notts, played at Trent Bridge a few +days earlier, had not foreshadowed any startling results. The truth of +the matter is that Stott had been kept, deliberately, in the background; +and as matters turned out his services were only required to finish off +Notts' second innings. Stott was even then a marked man, and the +Hampdenshire captain did not wish to advertise his methods too freely +before the Surrey match. Neither Archie Findlater, who was captaining +the team that year, nor any other person, had the least conception of +how unnecessary such a reservation was to prove. In his third year, when +Stott had been studied by every English, Australian, and South African +batsman of any note, he was still as unplayable as when he made his +début in first-class cricket. + +I was reporting the Surrey match for two papers, and in company with +poor Wallis interviewed Stott before the first innings. + +His appearance made a great impression on me. I have, of course, met +him, and talked with him many times since then, but my most vivid +memory of him is the picture recorded in the inadequate professional +dressing-room of the old Ailesworth pavilion. + +I have turned up the account of my interview in an old press-cutting +book, and I do not know that I can do better than quote that part of it +which describes Stott's personal appearance. I wrote the account on the +off chance of being able to get it taken. It was one of my lucky hits. +After that match, finished in a single day, my interview afforded copy +that any paper would have paid heavily for, and gladly. + +Here is the description: + + "Stott--he is known to every one in Ailesworth as 'Ginger' Stott--is + a short, thick-set young man, with abnormally long arms that are + tanned a rich red up to the elbow. The tan does not, however, + obliterate the golden freckles with which arm and face are richly + speckled. There is no need to speculate as to the _raison d'être_ of + his nickname. The hair of his head, a close, short crop, is a pale + russet, and the hair on his hands and arms is a yellower shade of + the same colour. 'Ginger' is, indeed, a perfectly apt description. + He has a square chin and a thin-lipped, determined mouth. His eyes + are a clear, but rather light blue, his forehead is good, broad, + and high, and he has a well-proportioned head. One might have put + him down as an engineer, essentially intelligent, purposeful, and + reserved." + +The description is journalistic, but I do not know that I could improve +upon the detail of it. I can see those queer, freckled, hairy arms of +his as I write--the combination of colours in them produced an effect +that was almost orange. It struck one as unusual.... + +Surrey had the choice of innings, and decided to bat, despite the fact +that the wicket was drying after rain, under the influence of a steady +south-west wind and occasional bursts of sunshine. Would any captain in +Stott's second year have dared to take first innings under such +conditions? The question is farcical now, but not a single member of the +Hampdenshire Eleven had the least conception that the Surrey captain was +deliberately throwing away his chances on that eventful day. + +Wallis and I were sitting together in the reporters' box. There were +only four of us; two specials,--Wallis and myself,--a news-agency +reporter, and a local man. + +"Stott takes first over," remarked Wallis, sharpening his pencil and +arranging his watch and score-sheet--he was very meticulous in his +methods. "They've put him to bowl against the wind. He's medium right, +isn't he?" + +"Haven't the least idea," I said. "He volunteered no information; +Hampdenshire have been keeping him dark." + +Wallis sneered. "Think they've got a find, eh?" he said. "We'll wait and +see what he can do against first-class batting." + +We did not have to wait long. + +As usual, Thorpe and Harrison were first wicket for Surrey, and Thorpe +took the first ball. + +It bowled him. It made his wicket look as untidy as any wicket I have +ever seen. The off stump was out of the ground, and the other two were +markedly divergent. + +"Damn it, I wasn't ready for him," we heard Thorpe say in the +professionals' room. Thorpe always had some excuse, but on this occasion +it was justified. + +C. V. Punshon was the next comer, and he got his first ball through the +slips for four, but Wallis looked at me with a raised eyebrow. + +"Punshon didn't know a lot about that," he said, and then he added, "I +say, what a queer delivery the chap has. He stands and shoots 'em out. +It's uncanny. He's a kind of human catapult." He made a note of the +phrase on his pad. + +Punshon succeeded in hitting the next ball, also, but it simply ran up +his bat into the hands of short slip. + +"Well, that's a sitter, if you like," said Wallis. "What's the matter +with 'em?" + +I was beginning to grow enthusiastic. + +"Look here, Wallis," I said, "this chap's going to break records." + +Wallis was still doubtful. + +He was convinced before the innings was over. + +There must be many who remember the startling poster that heralded the +early editions of the evening papers: + + SURREY + + ALL OUT + + FOR 13 RUNS. + +For once sub-editors did not hesitate to give the score on the contents +bill. That was a proclamation which would sell. Inside, the headlines +were rich and varied. I have an old paper by me, yellow now, and +brittle, that may serve as a type for the rest. The headlines are as +follows:-- + + SURREY AND HAMPDENSHIRE. + + EXTRAORDINARY BOWLING + PERFORMANCE. + + DOUBLE HAT-TRICK. + + SURREY ALL OUT IN 35 MINUTES + FOR 13 RUNS. + + STOTT TAKES 10 WICKETS FOR 5. + +The "double hat-trick" was six consecutive wickets, the last six, all +clean bowled. + +"Good God!" Wallis said, when the last wicket fell, and he looked at me +with something like fear in his eyes. "This man will have to be barred; +it means the end of cricket." + + +VI + +Stott's accident came during the high flood of Hampdenshire success. For +two years they held undisputed place as champion county, a place which +could not be upset by the most ingenious methods of calculating points. +They three times defeated Australia, and played four men in the test +matches. As a team they were capable of beating any Eleven opposed to +them. Not even the newspaper critics denied that. + +The accident appeared insignificant at the time. The match was against +Notts on the Trent Bridge ground. I was reporting for three papers; +Wallis was not there. + +Stott had been taken off. Notts were a poor lot that year and I think +Findlater did not wish to make their defeat appear too ignominious. +Flower was bowling; it was a fast, true wicket, and Stott, who was a +safe field, was at cover-point. + +G. L. Mallinson was batting and making good use of his opportunity; he +was, it will be remembered, a magnificent though erratic hitter. Flower +bowled him a short-pitched, fast ball, rather wide of the off-stump. +Many men might have left it alone, for the ball was rising, and the +slips were crowded, but Mallinson timed the ball splendidly, and drove +it with all his force. He could not keep it on the ground, however, and +Stott had a possible chance. He leaped for it and just touched the ball +with his right hand. The ball jumped the ring at its first bound, and +Mallinson never even attempted to run. There was a big round of applause +from the Trent Bridge crowd. + +I noticed that Stott had tied a handkerchief round his finger, but I +forgot the incident until I saw Findlater beckon to his best bowler, a +few overs later. Notts had made enough runs for decency; it was time to +get them out. + +I saw Stott walk up to Findlater and shake his head, and through my +glasses I saw him whip the handkerchief from his finger and display his +hand. Findlater frowned, said something and looked towards the pavilion, +but Stott shook his head. He evidently disagreed with Findlater's +proposal. Then Mallinson came up, and the great bulk of his back hid the +faces of the other two. The crowd was beginning to grow excited at the +interruption. Every one had guessed that something was wrong. All round +the ring men were standing up, trying to make out what was going on. + +I drew my inferences from Mallinson's face, for when he turned round and +strolled back to his wicket, he was wearing a broad smile. Through my +field glasses I could see that he was licking his lower lip with his +tongue. His shoulders were humped and his whole expression one of barely +controlled glee. (I always see that picture framed in a circle; a +bioscopic presentation.) He could hardly refrain from dancing. Then +little Beale, who was Mallinson's partner, came up and spoke to him, and +I saw Mallinson hug himself with delight as he explained the situation. + +When Stott unwillingly came back to the pavilion, a low murmur ran round +the ring, like the buzz of a great crowd of disturbed blue flies. In +that murmur I could distinctly trace the signs of mixed feelings. No +doubt the crowd had come there to witness the performances of the new +phenomenon--the abnormal of every kind has a wonderful attraction for +us--but, on the other hand, the majority wanted to see their own county +win. Moreover, Mallinson was giving them a taste of his abnormal powers +of hitting, and the batsman appeals to the spectacular, more than the +bowler. + +I ran down hurriedly to meet Stott. + +"Only a split finger, sir," he said carelessly, in answer to my +question; "but Mr. Findlater says I must see to it." + +I examined the finger, and it certainly did not seem to call for +surgical aid. Evidently it had been caught by the seam of the new ball; +there was a fairly clean cut about half an inch long on the fleshy +underside of the second joint of the middle finger. + +"Better have it seen to," I said. "We can't afford to lose you, you +know, Stott." + +Stott gave a laugh that was more nearly a snarl. "Ain't the first time +I've 'ad a cut finger," he said scornfully. + +He had the finger bound up when I saw him again, but it had been done by +an amateur. I learnt afterwards that no antiseptic had been used. That +was at lunch time, and Notts had made a hundred and sixty-eight for one +wicket; Mallinson was not out, a hundred and three. I saw that the Notts +Eleven were in magnificent spirits. + +But after lunch Stott came out and took the first over. I don't know +what had passed between him and Findlater, but the captain had evidently +been over-persuaded. + +We must not blame Findlater. The cut certainly appeared trifling, it was +not bad enough to prevent Stott from bowling, and Hampdenshire seemed +powerless on that wicket without him. It is very easy to distribute +blame after the event, but most people would have done what Findlater +did in those circumstances. + +The cut did not appear to inconvenience Stott in the least degree. He +bowled Mallinson with his second ball, and the innings was finished up +in another fifty-seven minutes for the addition of thirty-eight runs. + +Hampdenshire made two hundred and thirty-seven for three wickets before +the drawing of stumps, and that was the end of the match, for the +weather changed during the night and rain prevented any further play. + +I, of course, stayed on in Nottingham to await results. I saw Stott on +the next day, Friday, and asked him about his finger. He made light of +it, but that evening Findlater told me over the bridge-table that he was +not happy about it. He had seen the finger, and thought it showed a +tendency to inflammation. "I shall take him to Gregory in the morning if +it's not all right," he said. Gregory was a well-known surgeon in +Nottingham. + +Again one sees, now, that the visit to Gregory should not have been +postponed, but at the time one does not take extraordinary precautions +in such a case as this. A split finger is such an everyday thing, and +one is guided by the average of experience. After all, if one were +constantly to make preparation for the abnormal; ordinary life could not +go on.... + +I heard that Gregory pursed his lips over that finger when he had +learned the name of his famous patient. "You'll have to be very careful +of this, young man," was Findlater's report of Gregory's advice. It was +not sufficient. I often wonder now whether Gregory might not have saved +the finger. If he had performed some small operation at once, cut away +the poison, it seems to me that the tragedy might have been averted. I +am, I admit, a mere layman in these matters, but it seems to me that +something might have been done. + +I left Nottingham on Saturday after lunch--the weather was hopeless--and +I did not make use of the information I had for the purposes of my +paper. I was never a good journalist. But I went down to Ailesworth on +Monday morning, and found that Findlater and Stott had already gone to +Harley Street to see Graves, the King's surgeon. + +I followed them, and arrived at Graves's house while Stott was in the +consulting-room. I hocussed the butler and waited with the patients. +Among the papers, I came upon the famous caricature of Stott in the +current number of _Punch_--the "Stand-and-Deliver" caricature, in which +Stott is represented with an arm about ten feet long, and the batsman is +looking wildly over his shoulder to square leg, bewildered, with no +conception from what direction the ball is coming. Underneath is written +"Stott's New Theory--the Ricochet. Real Ginger." While I was laughing +over the cartoon, the butler came in and nodded to me. I followed him +out of the room and met Findlater and Stott in the hall. + +Findlater was in a state of profanity. I could not get a sensible word +out of him. He was in a white heat of pure rage. The butler, who seemed +as anxious as I to learn the verdict, was positively frightened. + +"Well, for God's sake tell me what Graves said," I protested. + +Findlater's answer is unprintable, and told me nothing. + +Stott, however, quite calm and self-possessed, volunteered the +information. "Finger's got to come off, sir," he said quietly. "Doctor +says if it ain't off to-day or to-morrer, he won't answer for my 'and." + +This was the news I had to give to England. It was a great coup from the +journalistic point of view, but I made up my three columns with a heavy +heart, and the congratulations of my editor only sickened me. I had some +luck, but I should never have become a good journalist. + +The operation was performed successfully that evening, and Stott's +career was closed. + + +VII + +I did not see Stott again till August, and then I had a long talk with +him on the Ailesworth County Ground, as together we watched the progress +of Hampdenshire's defeat by Lancashire. + +"Oh! I can't learn him _nothing_," he broke out, as Flower was hit to +the four corners of the ground, "'alf vollies and long 'ops and then a +full pitch--'e's a disgrace." + +"They've knocked him off his length," I protested. "On a wicket like +this ..." + +Stott shook his head. "I've been trying to learn 'im," he said, "but he +can't never learn. 'E's got 'abits what you can't break 'im of." + +"I suppose it _is_ difficult," I said vaguely. + +"Same with me," went on Stott, "I've been trying to learn myself to bowl +without my finger"--he held up his mutilated hand--"or left-'anded; but +I can't. If I'd started that way ... No! I'm always feeling for that +finger as is gone. A second-class bowler I might be in time, not better +nor that." + +"It's early days yet," I ventured, intending encouragement, but Stott +frowned and shook his head. + +"I'm not going to kid myself," he said, "I know. But I'm going to find a +youngster and learn 'im. On'y he must be young. + +"No 'abits, you know," he explained. + +The next time I met Stott was in November. I ran up against him, +literally, one Friday afternoon in Ailesworth. + +When he recognised me he asked me if I would care to walk out to +Stoke-Underhill with him. "I've took a cottage there," he explained, +"I'm to be married in a fortnight's time." + +His circumstances certainly warranted such a venture. The proceeds of +matinée and benefit, invested for him by the Committee of the County +Club, produced an income of nearly two pounds a week, and in addition to +this he had his salary as groundsman. I tendered my congratulations. + +"Oh! well, as to that, better wait a bit," said Stott. + +He walked with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground. He +had the air of a man brooding over some project. + +"It _is_ a lottery, of course ..." I began, but he interrupted me. + +"Oh that!" he said, and kicked a stone into the ditch; "take my chances +of that. It's the kid I'm thinking on." + +"The kid?" I repeated, doubtful whether he spoke of his fiancée, or +whether his nuptials pointed an act of reparation. + +"What, else 'ud I tie myself up for?" asked Stott. "I must 'ave a kid of +my own and learn 'im from his cradle. It's come to that." + +"Oh! I understand," I said; "teach him to bowl." + +"Ah!" replied Stott as an affirmative. "Learn 'im from his cradle; +before 'e's got 'abits. When I started I'd never bowled a ball in my +life, and by good luck I started right. But I can't find another kid +over seven years old in England as ain't never bowled a ball o' some +sort and started 'abits. I've tried ..." + +"And you hope with your own boys...?" I said. + +"Not 'ope, it's a cert," said Stott. "I'll see no boy of mine touches a +ball afore he's fourteen, and then 'e'll learn from me; and learn +right. From the first go off." He was silent for a few seconds, and then +he broke out in a kind of ecstasy. "My Gawd, 'e'll be a bowler such as +'as never been, never in this world. He'll start where I left orf. +He'll ..." Words failed him, he fell back on the expletive he had used, +repeating it with an awed fervour. "My Gawd!" + +I had never seen Stott in this mood before. It was a revelation to me of +the latent potentialities of the man, the remarkable depth and quality +of his ambitions.... + + +VIII + +I intended to be present at Stott's wedding, but I was not in England +when it took place; indeed, for the next two years and a half I was +never in England for more than a few days at a time. I sent him a +wedding-present, an inkstand in the guise of a cricket ball, with a +pen-rack that was built of little silver wickets. They were still +advertised that Christmas as "Stott inkstands." + +Two years and a half of American life broke up many of my old habits of +thought. When I first returned to London I found that the cricket news +no longer held the same interest for me, and this may account for the +fact that I did not trouble for some time to look up my old friend +Stott. + +In July, however, affairs took me to Ailesworth, and the associations of +the place naturally led me to wonder how Stott's marriage had turned +out, and whether the much-desired son had been born to him. When my +business in Ailesworth was done, I decided to walk out to +Stoke-Underhill. + +The road passes the County Ground, and a match was in progress, but I +walked by without stopping. I was wool-gathering. I was not thinking of +the man I was going to see, or I should have turned in at the County +Ground, where he would inevitably have been found. Instead, I was +thinking of the abnormal child I had seen in the train that day; +uselessly speculating and wondering. + +When I reached Stoke-Underhill I found the cottage which Stott had shown +me. I had by then so far recovered my wits as to know that I should not +find Stott himself there, but from the look of the cottage I judged that +it was untenanted, so I made inquiries at the post-office. + +"No; he don't live here, now, sir," said the postmistress; "he lives at +Pym, now, sir, and rides into Ailesworth on his bike." She was evidently +about to furnish me with other particulars, but I did not care to hear +them. I was moody and distrait. I was wondering why I should bother my +head about so insignificant a person as this Stott. + +"You'll be sure to find Mr. Stott at the cricket ground," the +postmistress called after me. + +Another two months of English life induced a return to my old habits of +thought. I found myself reverting to old tastes and interests. The +reversion was a pleasant one. In the States I had been forced out of my +groove, compelled to work, to strive, to think desperately if I would +maintain any standing among my contemporaries. But when the perpetual +stimulus was removed, I soon fell back to the less strenuous methods of +my own country. I had time, once more, for the calm reflection that is +so unlike the urgent, forced, inventive thought of the American +journalist. I was braced by that thirty months' experience, perhaps +hardened a little, but by September my American life was fading into the +background; I had begun to take an interest in cricket again. + +With the revival of my old interests, revived also my curiosity as to +Ginger Stott, and one Sunday in late September I decided to go down to +Pym. + +It was a perfect day, and I thoroughly enjoyed my four-mile walk from +Great Hittenden Station. + +Pym is a tiny hamlet made up of three farms and a dozen scattered +cottages. Perched on one of the highest summits of the Hampden Hills and +lost in the thick cover of beech woods, without a post-office or a +shop, Pym is the most perfectly isolated village within a reasonable +distance of London. As I sauntered up the mile-long lane that climbs the +steep hill, and is the only connection between Pym and anything +approaching a decent road, I thought that this was the place to which I +should like to retire for a year, in order to write the book I had so +often contemplated, and never found time to begin. This, I reflected, +was a place of peace, of freedom from all distraction, the place for +calm, contemplative meditation. + +I met no one in the lane, and there was no sign of life when I reached +what I must call the village, though the word conveys a wrong idea, for +there is no street, merely a cottage here and there, dropped haphazard, +and situated without regard to its aspect. These cottages lie all on +one's left hand; to the right a stretch of grass soon merges into +bracken and bush, and then the beech woods enclose both, and surge down +into the valley and rise up again beyond, a great wave of green; as I +saw it then, not yet touched with the first flame of autumn. + +I inquired at the first cottage and received my direction to Stott's +dwelling. It lay up a little lane, the further of two cottages joined +together. + +The door stood open, and after a moment's hesitation and a light knock, +I peered in. + +Sitting in a rocking-chair was a woman with black, untidy eyebrows, and +on her knee, held with rigid attention, was the remarkable baby I had +seen in the train two months before. As I stood, doubtful and, I will +confess it, intimidated, suddenly cold and nervous, the child opened his +eyes and honoured me with a cold stare. Then he nodded, a reflective, +recognisable nod. + +"'E remembers seein' you in the train, sir," said the woman, "'e never +forgets any one. Did you want to see my 'usband? 'E's upstairs." + +So _this_ was the boy who was designed by Stott to become the greatest +bowler the world had ever seen.... + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] A relatively easy task for the baseball thrower, but one very +difficult of accomplishment for the English bowler, who is not permitted +by the laws of cricket to bend his elbow in delivering the ball. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE DISILLUSIONMENT OF GINGER STOTT + + +I + +Stott maintained an obstinate silence as we walked together up to the +Common, a stretch of comparatively open ground on the plateau of the +hill. He walked with his hands in his pockets and his head down, as he +had walked out from Ailesworth with me nearly three years before, but +his mood was changed. I was conscious that he was gloomy, depressed, +perhaps a little unstrung. I was burning with curiosity. Now that I was +released from the thrall of the child's presence, I was eager to hear +all there was to tell of its history. + +Presently we sat down under an ash-tree, one of three that guarded a +shallow, muddy pond skimmed with weed. Stott accepted my offer of a +cigarette, but seemed disinclined to break the silence. + +I found nothing better to say than a repetition of the old phrase. +"That's a very remarkable baby of yours, Stott," I said. + +"Ah!" he replied, his usual substitute for "yes," and he picked up a +piece of dead wood and threw it into the little pond. + +"How old is he?" I asked. + +"Nearly two year." + +"Can he ..." I paused; my imagination was reconstructing the scene of +the railway carriage, and I felt a reflex of the hesitation shown by the +rubicund man when he had asked the same question. "Can he ... can he +talk?" It seemed so absurd a question to ask, yet it was essentially a +natural question in the circumstances. + +"He can, but he won't." + +This was startling enough, and I pressed my enquiry. + +"How do you know? Are you sure he can?" + +"Ah!" Only that irritating, monosyllabic assent. + +"Look here, Stott," I said, "don't you want to talk about the child?" + +He shrugged his shoulders and threw more wood into the pond with a +strained attentiveness as though he were peculiarly anxious to hit some +particular wafer of the vivid, floating weed. For a full five minutes we +maintained silence. I was trying to subdue my impatience and my temper. +I knew Stott well enough to know that if I displayed signs of either, I +should get no information from him. My self-control was rewarded at +last. + +"I've 'eard 'im speak," he said, "speak proper, too, not like a baby." + +He paused, and I grunted to show that I was listening, but as he +volunteered no further remark, I said: "What did you hear him say?" + +"I dunno," replied Stott, "somethin' about learnin' and talkin'. I +didn't get the rights of it, but the missus near fainted--_she_ thinks +'e's Gawd A'mighty or suthing." + +"But why don't you make him speak?" I asked deliberately. + +"Make 'im!" said Stott, with a curl of his lip, "_make_ 'im! You try it +on!" + +I knew I was acting a part, but I wanted to provoke more information. +"Well! Why not?" I said. + +"'Cos 'e'd look at you--that's why not," replied Stott, "and you can't +no more face 'im than a dog can face a man. I shan't stand it much +longer." + +"Curious," I said, "very curious." + +"Oh! he's a blarsted freak, that's what 'e is," said Stott, getting to +his feet and beginning to pace moodily up and down. + +I did not interrupt him. I was thinking of this man who had drawn huge +crowds from every part of England, who had been a national hero, and +who, now, was unable to face his own child. Presently Stott broke out +again. + +"To think of all the trouble I took when 'e was comin'," he said, +stopping in front of me. "There was nothin' the missus fancied as I +wouldn't get. We was livin' in Stoke then." He made a movement of his +head in the direction of Ailesworth. "Not as she was difficult," he went +on thoughtfully. "She used to say 'I mussent get 'abits, George.' Caught +that from me; I was always on about that--then. You know, thinkin' of +learnin' 'im bowlin'. Things was different then; afore _'e_ came." He +paused again, evidently thinking of his troubles. + +Sympathetically, I was wondering how far the child had separated husband +and wife. There was the making of a tragedy here, I thought; but when +Stott, after another period of pacing up and down, began to speak again +I found that his tragedy was of another kind. + +"Learn _'im_ bowling!" he said, and laughed a mirthless laugh. "My Gawd! +it 'ud take something. No fear; that little game's off. And I could a' +done it if he'd been a decent or'nery child, 'stead of a blarsted freak. +There won't never be another, neither. This one pretty near killed the +missus. Doctor said it'd be 'er last.... With an 'ead like that, whacher +expect?" + +"Can he walk?" I asked. + +"Ah! Gets about easy enough for all 'is body and legs is so small. When +the missus tries to stop 'im--she's afraid 'e'll go over--'e just looks +at 'er and she 'as to let 'im 'ave 'is own way." + + +II + +Later, I reverted to that speech of the child's, that intelligent, +illuminating speech that seemed to prove that there was indeed a +powerful, thoughtful mind behind those profoundly speculative eyes. + +"That time he spoke, Stott," I said, "was he alone?" + +"Ah!" assented Stott. "In the garden, practisin' walkin' all by +'imself." + +"Was that the only time?" + +"Only time _I've_ 'eard 'im." + +"Was it lately?" + +"'Bout six weeks ago." + +"And he has never made a sound otherwise, cried, laughed?" + +"'Ardly. 'E gives a sort o' grunt sometimes, when 'e wants anything--and +points." + +"He's very intelligent." + +"Worse than that, 'e's a freak, I tell you." + +With the repetition of this damning description, Stott fell back into +his moody pacing, and this time I failed to rouse him from his gloom. +"Oh! forget it," he broke out once, when I asked him another question, +and I saw that he was not likely to give me any more information that +day. + +We walked back together, and I said good-bye to him at the end of the +lane which led up to his cottage. + +"Not comin' up?" he asked, with a nod of his head towards his home. + +"Well! I have to catch that train ..." I prevaricated, looking at my +watch. I did not wish to see that child again; my distaste was even +stronger than my curiosity. + +Stott grinned. "We don't 'ave many visitors," he said. "Well, I'll come +a bit farther with you." + +He came to the bottom of the hill, and after he left me he took the road +that goes over the hill to Wenderby. It would be about seven miles back +to Pym by that road.... + + +III + +I spent the next afternoon in the Reading Room of the British Museum. I +was searching for a precedent, and at last I found one in the story of +Christian Heinrich Heinecken,[2] who was born at Lubeck on February 6, +1721. There were marked points of difference between the development of +Heinecken and that of Stott's child. Heinecken was physically feeble; at +the age of three he was still being fed at the breast. The Stott +precocity appeared to be physically strong; his body looked small and +undeveloped, it is true, but this was partly an illusion produced by the +abnormal size of the head. Again Heinecken learned to speak very early; +at ten months old he was asking intelligent questions, at eighteen +months he was studying history, geography, Latin and anatomy; whereas +the Stott child had only once been heard to speak at the age of two +years, and had not, apparently, begun any study at all. + +From this comparison it might seem at first that the balance of +precocity lay in the Heinecken scale. I drew another inference. I argued +that the genius of the Stott child far outweighed the genius of +Christian Heinecken. + +Little Heinecken in his four years of life suffered the mental +experience--with certain necessary limitations--of a developed brain. He +gathered knowledge as an ordinary child gathers knowledge, the only +difference being that his rate of assimilation was as ten to one. + +But little Stott had gathered no knowledge from books. He had been born +of ignorant parents, he was being brought up among uneducated people. +Yet he had wonderful intellectual gifts; surely he must have one above +all others--the gift of reason. His brain must be constructive, logical; +he must have the power of deduction. He must even at an extraordinarily +early age, say six months, have developed some theory of life. He must +be withholding his energy, deliberately; declining to exhibit his +powers, holding his marvellous faculties in reserve. Here was surely a +case of genius which, comparable in some respects to the genius of +Heinecken, yet far exceeded it. + +As I developed my theory, my eagerness grew. And then suddenly an +inspiration came to me. In my excitement I spoke aloud and smacked the +desk in front of me with my open hand. "Why, of course!" I said. "That +is the key." + +An old man in the next seat scowled fiercely. The attendants in the +central circular desk all looked up. Other readers turned round and +stared at me. I had violated the sacred laws of the Reading Room. I saw +one of the librarians make a sign to an attendant and point to me. + +I gathered up my books quickly and returned them at the central desk. My +self-consciousness had returned, and I was anxious to be away from the +observation of the many dilettante readers who found my appearance more +engrossing than the books with which they were dallying on some pretext +or another. + +Yet, curiously, when I reached the street, the theory which had come to +me in the Museum with the force and vividness of an illuminating dream +had lost some of its glamour. Nevertheless, I set it out as it then +shaped itself in my mind. + +The great restraining force in the evolution of man, so I thought, has +been the restriction imposed by habit. What we call instinct is a +hereditary habit. This is the first guiding principle in the life of the +human infant. Upon this instinct we immediately superimpose the habits +of reason, all the bodily and intellectual conventions that have been +handed down from generation to generation. We learn everything we know +as children by the hereditary, simian habit of imitation. The child of +intellectual, cultured parents, born into savage surroundings, becomes +the slave of this inherited habit--call it tendency, if you will, the +intention is the same. I elaborated the theory by instance and +introspection, and found no flaw in it.... + +And here, by some freak of nature, was a child born without these +habits. During the period of gestation, one thought had dominated the +minds of both parents--the desire to have a son born without habits. It +does not seriously affect the theory that the desire had a peculiar end +in view; the wish, the urgent, controlling, omnipotent will had been +there, and the result included far more than the specific intention. + +Already some of my distaste for the Stott child had vanished. It was +accountable, and therefore no longer fearful. The child was supernormal, +a cause of fear to the normal man, as all truly supernormal things are +to our primitive, animal instincts. This is the fear of the wild thing; +when we can explain and give reasons, the horror vanishes. We are men +again. + +I did not quite recover the glow of my first inspiration, but the theory +remained with me; I decided to make a study of the child, to submit +knowledge to his reason. I would stand between him and the delimiting +training of the pedagogue, I thought. + +Then I reached home, and my life was changed. + +This story is not of my own life, and I have no wish to enter into the +curious and saddening experiences which stood between me and the child +of Ginger Stott for nearly six years. In that time my thoughts strayed +now and again to that cottage in the little hamlet on those wooded +hills. Often I thought "When I have time I will go and see that child +again if he is alive." But as the years passed, the memory of him grew +dim, even the memory of his father was blurred over by a thousand new +impressions. So it chanced that for nearly six years I heard no word of +Stott and his supernormal infant, and then chance again intervened. My +long period of sorrow came to an end almost as suddenly as it had begun, +and by a coincidence I was once more entangled in the strange web of the +abnormal. + +In this story of Victor Stott I have bridged these six years in the +pages that follow. In doing this I have been compelled to draw to a +certain extent on my imagination, but the main facts are true. They have +been gathered from first-hand authority only, from Henry Challis, from +Mrs. Stott, and from her husband; though none, I must confess, has been +checked by that soundest of all authorities, Victor Stott himself, who +might have given me every particular in accurate detail, had it not been +for those peculiarities of his which will be explained fully in the +proper place. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] See the Teutsche Bibliothek and Schoneich's account of the child of +Lubeck. + + + + +PART TWO + +THE CHILDHOOD OF THE WONDER + + + + +PART TWO + +THE CHILDHOOD OF THE WONDER + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE MANNER OF HIS BIRTH + + +I + +Stoke-Underhill lies in the flat of the valley that separates the +Hampden from the Quainton Hills. The main road from London to Ailesworth +does not pass through Stoke, but from the highway you can see the ascent +of the bridge over the railway, down the vista of a straight mile of +side road; and, beyond, a glimpse of scattered cottages. That is all, +and as a matter of fact, no one who is not keeping a sharp look-out +would ever notice the village, for the eye is drawn to admire the bluff +of Deane Hill, the highest point of the Hampdens, which lowers over the +little hamlet of Stoke and gives it a second name; and to the church +tower of Chilborough Beacon, away to the right, another landmark. + +The attraction which Stoke-Underhill held for Stott, lay not in its +seclusion or its picturesqueness but in its nearness to the County +Ground. Stott could ride the two flat miles which separated him from the +scene of his work in ten minutes, and Ailesworth station is only a mile +beyond. So when he found that there was a suitable cottage to let in +Stoke, he looked no farther for a home; he was completely satisfied. + +Stott's absorption in any matter that was occupying his mind made him +exceedingly careless about the detail of his affairs. He took the first +cottage that offered when he looked for a home, he took the first woman +who offered when he looked for a wife. + +Stott was not an attractive man to women. He was short and plain, and he +had an appearance of being slightly deformed, a "monkeyish" look, due to +his build and his long arms. Still, he was famous, and might, doubtless, +have been accepted by a dozen comely young women for that reason, even +after his accident. But if Stott was unattractive to women, women were +even more unattractive to Stott. "No opinion of women?" he used to say. +"Ever seen a gel try to throw a cricket ball? You 'ave? Well, ain't that +enough to put you off women?" That was Stott's intellectual standard; +physically, he had never felt drawn to women. + +Ellen Mary Jakes exhibited no superiority over her sisters in the matter +of throwing a cricket ball. She was a friend of Ginger's mother, and +she was a woman of forty-two, who had long since been relegated to some +remote shelf of the matrimonial exchange. But her physical disadvantages +were outbalanced by her mental qualities. Ellen Mary was not a +book-worm, she read nothing but the evening and Sunday papers, but she +had a reasoning and intelligent mind. + +She had often contemplated the state of matrimony, and had made more +than one tentative essay in that direction. She had walked out with +three or four sprigs of the Ailesworth bourgeoisie in her time, and the +shadow of middle-age had crept upon her before she realised that however +pliant her disposition, her lack of physical charm put her at the mercy +of the first bright-eyed rival. At thirty-five Ellen had decided, with +admirable philosophy, that marriage was not for her, and had assumed, +with apparent complacency, the outward evidences of a dignified +spinsterhood. She had discarded gay hats and ribbons, imitation +jewellery, unreliable cheap shoes, and chill diaphanous stockings, and +had found some solace for her singleness in more comfortable and +suitable apparel. + +When Ellen, a declared spinster of seven years' standing, was first +taken into the confidence of Ginger Stott's mother, the scheme which she +afterwards elaborated immediately presented itself to her mind. This +fact is a curious instance of Ellen Mary's mobility of intellect, and +the student of heredity may here find matter for careful thought.[3] + +The confidence in question was Ginger's declared intention of becoming +the father of the world's greatest bowler. Mrs. Stott was a dark, +garrulous, rather deaf little woman, with a keen eye for the main +chance; she might have become a successful woman of business if she had +not been by nature both stingy and a cheat. When her son presented his +determination, her first thought was to find some woman who would not +dissipate her son's substance, and in her opinion--not expressed to +Ginger--the advertised purpose of the contemplated marriage evidenced a +wasteful disposition. + +Mrs. Stott did not think of Ellen Mary as a possible daughter-in-law, +but she did hold forth for an hour and three-quarters on the +contemptible qualities of the young maidens, first of Ailesworth, and +then with a wider swoop that was not justified by her limited +experience, of the girls of England, Scotland, and Ireland at large. + +It required the flexible reasoning powers of Ellen Mary to find a +solution of the problem. Any ordinary, average woman of forty-two, a +declared spinster of seven years' standing, who had lived all her life +in a provincial town, would have been mentally unable to realise the +possibilities of the situation. Such a representative of the decaying +sexual instinct would have needed the stimulus of courtship, at the +least of some hint of preference displayed by the suitor. Ruled by the +conventions which hold her sex in bondage, she would have deemed it +unwomanly to make advances by any means other than innuendo, the subtle +suggestions which are the instruments of her sex, but which are often +too delicate to pierce the understanding of the obtuse and slow-witted +male. + +Ellen Mary stood outside the ruck that determines the destinies of all +such typical representatives. She considered the idea presented to her +by Mrs. Stott with an open and mobile intelligence. She weighed the +character of Ginger, the possibilities of rejection, and the influence +of Mrs. Stott; and she gave no thought to the conventions, nor to the +criticisms of Ailesworth society. When she had decided that such chances +as she could calculate were in her favour, Ellen made up her mind, +walked out to the County Ground one windy October forenoon, and +discovered Ginger experimenting with grass seed in a shed off the +pavilion. + +In this shed she offered herself, while Ginger worked on, attentive but +unresponsive. Perhaps she did not make an offer so much as state a case. +A masterly case, without question; for who can doubt that Stott, however +procrastinating and unwilling to make a definite overture, must already +have had some type of womanhood in his mind; some conception, the seed +of an ideal. + +I find a quality of romance in this courageous and unusual wooing of +Ellen Mary's; but more, I find evidences of the remarkable quality of +her intelligence. In other circumstances the name of Ellen Mary Jakes +might have stood for individual achievement; instead of that, she is +remembered as a common woman who _happened_ to be the mother of Victor +Stott. But when the facts are examined, can we say that chance entered? +If ever the birth of a child was deliberately designed by both parents, +it was in the case under consideration. And in what a strange setting +was the inception first displayed. + +Ellen Mary, a gaunt, tall, somewhat untidy woman, stood at the narrow +door of the little shed off the Ailesworth pavilion; with one hand, +shoulder-high, she steadied herself against the door frame, with the +other she continually pushed forward the rusty bonnet which had been +loosened during her walk by the equinoctial gale that now tore at the +door of the shed, and necessitated the employment of a wary foot to keep +the door from slamming. With all these distractions she still made good +her case, though she had to raise her voice above the multitudinous +sounds of the wind, and though she had to address the unresponsive +shoulders of a man who bent over shallow trays of earth set on a trestle +table under the small and dirty window. It is heroic, but she had her +reward in full measure. Presently her voice ceased, and she waited in +silence for the answer that should decide her destiny. There was an +interval broken only by the tireless passion of the wind, and then +Ginger Stott, the best-known man in England, looked up and stared +through the incrusted pane of glass before him at the dim vision of +stooping grass and swaying hedge. Unconsciously his hand strayed to his +pockets, and then he said in a low, thoughtful voice: "Well! I dunno why +not." + + +II + +Dr. O'Connell's face was white and drawn, and the redness of his eyelids +more pronounced than ever as he faced Stott in the pale October dawn. He +clutched at his beard with a nervous, combing movement, as he shook his +head decidedly in answer to the question put to him. + +"If it's not dead, now, 'twill be in very few hours," he said. + +Stott was shaken by the feeble passion of a man who has spent many weary +hours of suspense. His anger thrilled out in a feeble stream of +hackneyed profanities. + +O'Connell looked down on him with contempt. At sunrise, after a +sleepless night, a man is a creature of unrealised emotions. + +"Damn it, control yourself, man!" growled O'Connell, himself +uncontrolled, "your wife'll pull through with care, though she'll never +have another child." O'Connell did not understand; he was an Irishman, +and no cricketer; he had been called in because he had a reputation for +his skill in obstetrics. + +Stott stared at him fiercely. The two men seemed as if about to grapple +desperately for life in the windy, grey twilight. + +O'Connell recovered his self-control first, and began again to claw +nervously at his beard. "Don't be a fool," he said, "it's only what you +could expect. Her first child, and her a woman of near fifty." He +returned to the upstairs room; Stott seized his cap and went out into +the chill world of sunrise. + +"She'll do, if there are no complications," said O'Connell to the +nurse, as he bent over the still, exhausted figure of Mrs. Stott. "She's +a wonderful woman to have delivered such a child alive." + +The nurse shivered, and avoiding any glance at the huddle that lay on an +improvised sofa-bed, she said: "It can't live, can it?" + +O'Connell, still intent on his first patient, shook his head. "Never +cried after delivery," he muttered--"the worst sign." He was silent for +a moment and then he added: "But, to be sure, it's a freak of some +kind." His scientific curiosity led him to make a further investigation. +He left the bed and began to examine the huddle on the sofa-couch. +Victor Stott owed his life, in the first instance, to this scientific +curiosity of O'Connell's. + +The nurse, a capable, but sentimental woman, turned to the window and +looked out at the watery trickle of feeble sunlight that now illumined +the wilderness of Stott's garden. + +"Nurse!" The imperative call startled her; she turned nervously. + +"Yes, doctor?" she said, making no movement towards him. + +"Come here!" O'Connell was kneeling by the sofa. "There seems to be +complete paralysis of all the motor centres," he went on; "but the +child's not dead. We'll try artificial respiration." + +The nurse overcame her repugnance by a visible effort. "Is it ... is it +worth while?" she asked, regarding the flaccid, tumbled, wax-like thing, +with its bloated, white globe of a skull. Every muscle of it was relaxed +and limp, its eyes shut, its tiny jaw hanging. "Wouldn't it be better to +let it die...?" + +O'Connell did not seem to hear her. He waved an impatient hand for her +assistance. "Outside my experience," he muttered, "no heart-beat +discernible, no breath ... yet it is indubitably alive." He depressed +the soft, plastic ribs and gave the feeble heart a gentle squeeze. + +"It's beating," he ejaculated, after a pause, with an ear close to the +little chest, "but still no breath! Come!" + +The diminutive lungs were as readily open to suggestion as the wee +heart: a few movements of the twigs they called arms, and the breath +came. O'Connell closed the mouth and it remained closed, adjusted the +limbs, and they stayed in the positions in which they were placed. At +last he gently lifted the lids of the eyes. + +The nurse shivered and drew back. Even O'Connell was startled, for the +eyes that stared into his own seemed to be heavy with a brooding +intelligence.... + +Stott came back at ten o'clock, after a morose trudge through the misty +rain. He found the nurse in the sitting-room. + +"Doctor gone?" he asked. + +The nurse nodded. + +"Dead, I suppose?" Stott gave an upward twist of his head towards the +room above. + +The nurse shook her head. + +"Can't live though?" There was a note of faint hope in his voice. + +The nurse drew herself together and sighed deeply. "Yes! we believe +it'll live, Mr. Stott," she said. "But ... it's a very remarkable baby." + +How that phrase always recurred! + + +III + +There were no complications, but Mrs. Stott's recovery was not rapid. It +was considered advisable that she should not see the child. She thought +that they were lying to her, that the child was dead and, so, resigned +herself. But her husband saw it. + +He had never seen so young an infant before, and, just for one moment, +he believed that it was a normal child. + +"What an 'ead!" was his first ejaculation, and then he realised the +significance of that sign. Fear came into his eyes, and his mouth fell +open. "'Ere, I say, nurse, it's ... it's a wrong 'un, ain't it?" he +gasped. + +"I'm _sure_ I can't tell you, Mr. Stott," broke out the nurse +hysterically. She had been tending that curious baby for three hours, +and she was on the verge of a break-down. There was no wet-nurse to be +had, but a woman from the village had been sent for. She was expected +every moment. + +"More like a tadpole than anything," mused the unhappy father. + +"Oh! Mr. Stott, for goodness' sake, _don't_," cried the nurse. "If you +only knew...." + +"Knew what?" questioned Stott, still staring at the motionless figure of +his son, who lay with closed eyes, apparently unconscious. + +"There's something--I don't know," began the nurse, and then after a +pause, during which she seemed to struggle for some means of expression, +she continued with a sigh of utter weariness, "You'll know when it opens +its eyes. Oh! Why doesn't that woman come, the woman you sent for?" + +"She'll be 'ere directly," replied Stott. "What d'you mean about there +bein' something ... something what?" + +"Uncanny," said the nurse without conviction. "I do wish that woman +would come. I've been up the best part of the night, and now ..." + +"Uncanny? As how?" persisted Stott. + +"Not normal," explained the nurse. "I can't tell you more than that." + +"But 'ow? What way?" + +He did not receive an answer then, for the long expected relief came at +last, a great hulk of a woman, who became voluble when she saw the child +she had come to nurse. + +"Oh! dear, oh! dear," the stream began. "How unforchnit, and 'er first, +too. It'll be a idjit, I'm afraid. Mrs. 'Arrison's third was the very +spit of it...." + +The stream ran on, but Stott heard no more. An idiot! He had fathered an +idiot! That was the end of his dreams and ambitions! He had had an +hour's sleep on the sitting-room sofa. He went out to his work at the +County Ground with a heart full of blasphemy. + +When he returned at four o'clock he met the stout woman on the doorstep. +She put up a hand to her rolling breast, closed her eyes tightly, and +gasped as though completely overcome by this trifling rencounter. + +"'Ow is it?" questioned the obsessed Stott. + +"Oh dear! Oh dear!" panted the stout woman, "the leas' thing upsets me +this afternoon...." She wandered away into irrelevant fluency, but Stott +was autocratic; his insistent questions overcame the inertia of even +Mrs. Reade at last. The substance of her information, freed from +extraneous matter, was as follows: + +"Oh! 'ealthy? It'll live, I've no doubt, if that's what you mean; but +'elpless...! There, 'elpless is no word.... Learn 'im to open his mouth, +learn 'im to close 'is 'ands, learn 'im to go to sleep, learn 'im +everythink. I've never seen nothink like it, never in all my days, and +I've 'elped to bring a few into the world.... I can't begin to tell you +about it, Mr. Stott, and that's the solemn truth. When 'e first looked +at me, I near 'ad a faint. A old-fashioned, wise sort of look as 'e +might 'a been a 'undred. 'Lord 'elp us, nurse,' I says, 'Lord 'elp us.' +I was that opset, I didn't rightly know what I was a-saying...." + +Stott pushed past the agitated Mrs. Reade, and went into the +sitting-room. He had had neither breakfast nor lunch; there was no sign +of any preparation for his tea, and the fireplace was grey with the +cinders of last night's fire. For some minutes he sat in deep +despondency, a hero faced with the uncompromising detail of domestic +neglect. Then he rose and called to the nurse. + +She appeared at the head of the steep, narrow staircase. "Sh!" she +warned, with a finger to her lips. + +"I'm goin' out again," said Stott in a slightly modulated voice. + +"Mrs. Reade's coming back presently," replied the nurse, and looked over +her shoulder. + +"Want me to wait?" asked Stott. + +The nurse came down a few steps. "It's only in case any one was wanted," +she began, "I've got two of 'em on my hands, you see. They're both doing +well as far as that goes. Only ..." She broke off and drifted into small +talk. Ever and again she stopped and listened intently, and looked back +towards the half-open door of the upstairs room. + +Stott fidgeted, and then, as the flow of conversation gave no sign of +running dry, he dammed it abruptly. "Look 'ere, miss," he said, "I've +'ad nothing to eat since last night." + +"Oh! dear!" ejaculated the nurse. "If--perhaps, if you'd just stay here +and listen, I could get you something." She seemed relieved to have some +excuse for coming down. + +While she bustled about the kitchen, Stott, half-way upstairs, stayed +and listened. The house was very silent, the only sound was the hushed +clatter made by the nurse in the kitchen. There was an atmosphere of +wariness about the place that affected even so callous a person as +Stott. He listened with strained attention, his eyes fixed on the +half-open door. He was not an imaginative man, but he was beset with +apprehension as to what lay behind that door. He looked for something +inhuman that might come crawling through the aperture, something +grotesque, preternaturally wise and threatening--something horribly +unnatural. + +The window of the upstairs room was evidently open, and now and again +the door creaked faintly. When that happened Stott gripped the handrail, +and grew damp and hot. He looked always at the shadows under the door. +If it crawled ... + +The nurse stood at the door of the sitting-room while Stott ate, and +presently Mrs. Reade came grunting and panting up the brick path. + +"I'm going out, now," said Stott resolutely, and he rose to his feet, +though his meal was barely finished. + +"You'll be back before Mrs. Reade goes?" asked the nurse, and passed a +hand over her tired eyes. "She'll be here till ten o'clock. I'm going to +lie down." + +"I'll be back by ten," Stott assured her as he went out. + +He did come back at ten o'clock, but he was stupidly drunk. + + +IV + +The Stotts' cottage was no place to live in during the next few days, +but the nurse made one stipulation: Mr. Stott must come home to sleep. +He slept on an improvised bed in the sitting-room, and during the night +the nurse came down many times and listened to the sound of his snores. +She would put her ear against the door, and rest her nerves with the +thought of human companionship. Sometimes she opened the door quietly +and watched him as he slept. Except at night, when he was rarely quite +sober, Stott only visited his cottage once a day, at lunch time; from +seven in the morning till ten at night he remained in Ailesworth save +for this one call of inquiry. + +It was such a still house. Ellen Mary only spoke when speech was +absolutely required, and then her words were the fewest possible, and +were spoken in a whisper. The child made no sound of any kind. Even Mrs. +Reade tried to subdue her stertorous breathing, to move with less +ponderous quakings. The neighbours told her she looked thinner. + +Little wonder that during the long night vigil the nurse, moving +silently between the two upstairs rooms, should pause on the landing and +lean over the handrail; little wonder that she should give a long sigh +of relief when she heard the music of Stott's snore ascend from the +sitting-room. + +O'Connell called twice every day during the first week, not because it +was necessary for him to visit his two patients, but because the infant +fascinated him. He would wait for it to open its eyes, and then he +would get up and leave the room hurriedly. Always he intended to return +the infant's stare, but when the opportunity was given to him, he always +rose and left the room--no matter how long and deliberately he had +braced himself to another course of action. + +It was on a Thursday that the baby was born, and it was on the following +Thursday that the circumstance of the household was reshaped. + +O'Connell came in the morning, full of resolution. After he had +pronounced Mrs. Stott well on the way to recovery, he paid the usual +visit to his younger patient. The child lay, relaxed, at full length, in +the little cot which had been provided for him. His eyes were, as usual, +closed, and he had all the appearance of the ordinary hydrocephalic +idiot. + +O'Connell sat down by the cot, listened to the child's breathing and +heart-beat, lifted and let fall again the lax wrist, turned back the +eyelid, revealing only the white of the upturned eyeball, and then +composed himself to await the natural waking of the child, if it were +asleep--always a matter of uncertainty. + +The nurse stood near him, silent, but she looked away from the cot. + +"Hydrocephalus!" murmured O'Connell, staring at his tiny patient, +"hydrocephalus, without a doubt. Eh? nurse!" + +"Yes, perhaps! I don't know, doctor." + +"Oh, not a doubt of it, not a doubt," repeated O'Connell, and then came +a flicker of the child's eyelids and a weak crumpling of the tiny hand. + +O'Connell caught his breath and clawed at his beard. "Hydrocephalus," he +muttered with set jaw and drawn eyebrows. + +The tiny hand straightened with a movement that suggested the recovery +of crushed grass, the mouth opened in a microscopic yawn, and then the +eyelids were slowly raised and a steady unwavering stare of profoundest +intelligence met O'Connell's gaze. + +He clenched his hands, shifted in his chair, and then rose abruptly and +turned to the window. + +"I--it won't be necessary for me to come again, nurse," he said curtly; +"they are both doing perfectly well." + +"Not come again?" There was dismay in the nurse's question. + +"No! No! It's unnecessary ..." He broke off, and made for the door +without another glance in the direction of the cot. + +Nurse followed him downstairs. + +"If I'm wanted--you can easily send for me," said O'Connell, as he went +out. As he moved away he dragged at his beard and murmured: +"Hydrocephalus, not a doubt of it." + +Following his departure, Mrs. Reade heard curious and most unwonted +laughter, and cautiously blundered downstairs to investigate. She found +the nurse in an advanced condition of hysteria, laughing, gurgling, +weeping, and intermittently crying in a shrill voice: "Oh! Lord have +mercy; Lord ha' mercy!" + +"Now, see you 'ere, my dear," said Mrs. Reade, when nurse had been +recovered to a red-eyed sanity, "it's time she was told. I've never 'eld +with keepin' it from 'er, myself, and I've 'ad more experience than +many...." Mrs. Reade argued with abundant recourse to parenthesis. + +"Is she strog edough?" asked the nurse, still with tears in her voice; +"cad she bear the sight of hib?" She blew her nose vigorously, and then +continued with greater clearness: "I'm afraid it may turn her head." + +Out of her deep store of wisdom, Mrs. Reade produced a fact which she +elaborated and confirmed by apt illustration, adducing more particularly +the instance of Mrs. Harrison's third. "She's 'is mother," was the +essence of her argument, a fact of deep and strange significance. + +The nurse yielded, and so the circumstance of Stott's household was +changed, and Stott himself was once more able to come home to meals. + +The nurse, wisely, left all diplomacy to the capable Mrs. Reade, a woman +specially fitted by nature for the breaking of news. She delivered a +long, a record-breaking circumlocution, and it seemed that Ellen Mary, +who lay with closed eyes, gathered no hint of its import. But when the +impressive harangue was slowly rustling to collapse like an exhausted +balloon, she opened her eyes and said quite clearly, + +"What's wrong with 'im, then?" + +The question had the effect of reinflation, but at last the child itself +was brought, and it was open-eyed. + +The supreme ambition of all great women--and have not all women the +potentialities of greatness?--is to give birth to a god. That ambition +it is which is marred by the disappointing birth of a female child--when +the man-child is born, there is always hope, and slow is the realisation +of failure. That realisation never came to Ellen Mary. She accepted her +child with the fear that is adoration. When she dropped her eyes before +her god's searching glance, she did it in reverence. She hid her faith +from the world, but in her heart she believed that she was blessed above +all women. In secret, she worshipped the inscrutable wonder that had +used her as the instrument of his incarnation. Perhaps she was +right.... + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] A study of genius shows that in a percentage of cases so large as to +exclude the possibility of coincidence, the exceptional man, whether in +the world of action, of art, or of letters, seems to inherit his +magnificent powers through the female line. Sir Francis Galton, it is +true, did not make a great point of this curious observation, but the +tendency of more recent analyses is all in the direction of confirming +the hypothesis; and it would seem to hold good in the converse +proposition, namely, that the exceptional woman inherits her qualities +from her father. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +HIS DEPARTURE FROM STOKE-UNDERHILL + + +I + +The village of Stoke was no whit intimidated by the news that Mrs. Reade +sowed abroad. The women exclaimed and chattered, the men gaped and shook +their heads, the children hung about the ruinous gate that shut them out +from the twenty-yard strip of garden which led up to Stott's cottage. +Curiosity was the dominant emotion. Any excuse was good enough to make +friendly overtures, but the baby remained invisible to all save Mrs. +Reade; and the village community kept open ears while the lust of its +eyes remained, perforce, unsatisfied. If Stott's gate slammed in the +wind, every door that commanded a view of that gate was opened, and +heads appeared, and bare arms--the indications of women who nodded to +each other, shook their heads, pursed their lips and withdrew for the +time to attend the pressure of household duty. Later, even that gate +slamming would reinvigorate the gossip of backyards and front doorways. + +The first stranger to force an entry was the rector. He was an Oxford +man who, in his youth, had been an ardent disciple of the school that +attempts the reconciliation of Religion and Science. He had been +ambitious, but nature had predetermined his career by giving him a head +of the wrong shape. At Oxford his limitations had not been clearly +defined, and on the strength of a certain speech at the Union, he crept +into a London west-end curacy. There he attempted to demonstrate the +principle of reconciliation from the pulpit, but his vicar and his +bishop soon recognised that excellent as were his intentions, he was +doing better service to agnosticism than to his own religion. As a +result of this clerical intrigue he was vilely marooned on the savage +island of Stoke-Underhill, where he might preach as much science as he +would to the natives, for there was no fear of their comprehending him. +Fifteen years of Stoke had brought about a reaction. Nature had made him +a feeble fanatic, and he was now as ardent an opponent of science as he +had once been a defender. In his little mind he believed that his early +reading had enabled him to understand all the weaknesses of the +scientific position. His name was Percy Crashaw. + +Mrs. Stott could not deny her rector the right of entry, and he insisted +on seeing the infant, who was not yet baptised--a shameful neglect, +according to Crashaw, for the child was nearly six weeks old. Nor had +Mrs. Stott been "churched." Crashaw had good excuse for pressing his +call. + +Mrs. Stott refused to face the village. She knew that the place was all +agape, eager to stare at what they considered some "new kind of idiot." +Let them wait, was Ellen Mary's attitude. Her pride was a later +development. In those early weeks she feared criticism. + +But she granted Crashaw's request to see the child, and after the +interview (the term is precise) the rector gave way on the question of a +private ceremony, though he had indignantly opposed the scheme when it +was first mooted. It may be that he conceived an image of himself with +that child in his arms, the cynosure of a packed congregation.... + +Crashaw was one of the influences that hastened the Stotts' departure +from Stoke. He was so indiscreet. After the christening he would talk. +His attitude is quite comprehensible. He, the lawgiver of Stoke, had +been thwarted. He had to find apology for the private baptism he had +denied to many a sickly infant. Moreover, the Stotts had broken another +of his ordinances, for father and mother had stood as godparents to +their own child, and Crashaw himself had been the second godfather +ordained as necessary by the rubric. He had given way on these important +points so weakly; he had to find excuse, and he talked himself into a +false belief with regard to the child he had baptised. + +He began with his wife. "I would allow more latitude to medical men," he +said. "In such a case as this child of the Stotts, for instance; it +becomes a burden on the community, I might say a danger, yes, a positive +danger. I am not sure whether I was right in administering the holy +sacrament of baptism...." + +"Oh! Percy! Surely ..." began Mrs. Crashaw. + +"One moment, my dear," protested the rector, "I have not fully explained +the circumstances of the case." And as he warmed to his theme the image +of Victor Stott grew to a fearful grotesqueness. It loomed as a threat +over the community and the church. Crashaw quoted, inaccurately, +statistics of the growth of lunacy, and then went off at a tangent into +the theory of possession by evil spirits. Since his rejection of +science, he had lapsed into certain forms of mediævalism, and he now +began to dally with the theory of a malign incarnation which he +elaborated until it became an article of his faith. + +To his poorer parishioners he spoke in vague terms, but he changed their +attitude; he filled them with overawed terror. They were intensely +curious still, but, now, when the gate was slammed, one saw a face +pressed to the window, the door remained fast; and the children no +longer clustered round that gate, but dared each other to run past it; +which they did, the girls with a scream, the boys with a jeering +"Yah--ah!" a boast of intrepidity. + +This change of temper was soon understood by the persons most concerned. +Stott grumbled and grew more morose. He had never been intimate with the +villagers, and now he avoided any intercourse with them. His wife kept +herself aloof, and her child sheltered from profane observation. +Naturally, this attitude of the Stotts fostered suspicion. Even the +hardiest sceptic in the taproom of the Challis Arms began to shake his +head, to concede that there "moight be soomething in it." + +Yet the departure from Stoke might have been postponed indefinitely, if +it had not been for another intrusion. Both Stott and his wife were +ready to take up a new idea, but they were slow to conceive it. + + +II + +The intruder was the local magnate, the landlord of Stoke, Wenderby, +Chilborough, a greater part of Ailesworth, two or three minor parishes, +and, incidentally, of Pym. + +This magnate, Henry Challis, was a man of some scholarship, whose +ambition had been crushed by the weight of his possessions. He had a +remarkably fine library at Challis Court, but he made little use of it, +for he spent the greater part of his time in travel. In appearance he +was rather an ungainly man; his great head and the bulk of his big +shoulders were something too heavy for his legs. + +Crashaw regarded his patron with mixed feelings. For Challis, the man of +property, the man of high connections, of intimate associations with the +world of science and letters, Crashaw had a feeling of awed respect; but +in private he inveighed against the wickedness of Challis, the agnostic, +the decadent. + +When Victor Stott was nearly three months old, the rector met his patron +one day on the road between Chilborough and Stoke. It was three years +since their last meeting, and Crashaw noticed that in the interval +Challis's pointed beard had become streaked with grey. + +"Hallo! How d'ye do, Crashaw?" was the squire's casual greeting. "How is +the Stoke microcosm?" + +Crashaw smiled subserviently; he was never quite at his ease in +Challis's presence. "Rari nantes in gurgite vasto," was the tag he found +in answer to the question put. However great his contempt for Challis's +way of life, in his presence Crashaw was often oppressed with a feeling +of inferiority, a feeling which he fought against but could not subdue. +The Latin tag was an attempt to win appreciation, it represented a boast +of equality. + +Challis correctly evaluated the rector's attitude; it was with something +of pity in his mind that he turned and walked beside him. + +There was but one item of news from Stoke, and it soon came to the +surface. Crashaw phrased his description of Victor Stott in terms other +than those he used in speaking to his wife or to his parishioners; but +the undercurrent of his virulent superstition did not escape Challis, +and the attitude of the villagers was made perfectly plain. + +"Hm!" was Challis's comment, when the flow of words ceased, "nigroque +simillima cygno, eh?" + +"Ah! of course, you sneer at our petty affairs," said Crashaw. + +"By no means. I should like to see this black swan of Stoke," replied +Challis. "Anything so exceptional interests me." + +"No doubt Mrs. Stott would be proud to exhibit the horror," said +Crashaw. He had a gleam of satisfaction in the thought that even the +great Henry Challis might be scared. That would, indeed, be a triumph. + +"If Mrs. Stott has no objection, of course," said Challis. "Shall we go +there, now?" + + +III + +The visit of Henry Challis marked the first advent of Ellen Mary's pride +in the exhibition of her wonder. After the King and the Royal +Family--superhuman beings, infinitely remote--the great landlord of the +neighbourhood stood as a symbol of temporal power to the whole district. +The budding socialist of the taproom might sneer, and make threat that +the time was coming when he, the boaster, and Challis, the landlord, +would have equal rights; but in public the socialist kow-towed to his +master with a submission no less obsequious than that of the humblest +conservative on the estate. + +Mrs. Stott dropped a deep curtsy when, opening the door to the +autocratic summons of Crashaw's rat-a-tat, she saw the great man of the +district at her threshold. Challis raised his hat. Crashaw did not +imitate his example; he was all officiousness, he had the air of a chief +superintendent of police. + +"Oh! Mrs. Stott, we should like to come in for a few minutes. Mr. +Challis would like to see your child." + +"Damn the fool!" was Challis's thought, but he gave it less abrupt +expression. "That is, of course, if it is quite convenient to you, Mrs. +Stott. I can come at some other time...." + +"Please walk in, sir," replied Mrs. Stott, and curtsied again as she +stood aside. + +Superintendent Crashaw led the way.... + +Challis called again next day, by himself this time; and the day after +he dropped in at six o'clock while Mr. and Mrs. Stott were at tea. He +put them at their ease by some magic of his personality, and insisted +that they should continue their meal while he sat among the collapsed +springs of the horsehair armchair. He leaned forward, swinging his stick +as a pendulum between his knees, and shot out questions as to the +Stotts' relations with the neighbours. And always he had an attentive +eye on the cradle that stood near the fire. + +"The neighbours are not highly intelligent, I suspect," said Challis. +"Even Mr. Crashaw, I fancy, does not appreciate the--peculiarities of +the situation." + +"He's worse than any," interpolated Stott. Ellen Mary sat in the shadow; +there was a new light in her eyes, a foretaste of glory. + +"Ah! a little narrow, a little dogmatic, no doubt," replied Challis. "I +was going to propose that you might prefer to live at Pym." + +"Much farther for me," muttered Stott. He had mixed with nobility on the +cricket field, and was not overawed. + +"No doubt; but you have other interests to consider, interests of far +greater importance." Challis shifted his gaze from the cradle, and +looked Stott in the face. "I understand that Mrs. Stott does not care to +take her child out in the village. Isn't that so?" + +"Yes, sir," replied Ellen, to whom this question was addressed. "I don't +care to make an exhibition of 'im." + +"Quite right, quite right," went on Challis, "but it is very necessary +that the child should have air. I consider it very necessary, a matter +of the first importance that the child should have air," he repeated. +His gaze had shifted back to the cradle again. The child lay with open +eyes, staring up at the ceiling. + +"Now, there is an excellent cottage at Pym which I will have put in +repair for you at once," continued Challis. "It is one of two together, +but next door there are only old Metcalfe and his wife and daughter, who +will give you no trouble. And really, Mrs. Stott," he tore his regard +from the cradle for a moment, "there is no reason in the world why you +should fear the attention of your neighbours. Here, in Stoke, I admit, +they have been under a complete misapprehension, but I fancy that there +were special reasons for that. In Pym you will have few neighbours, and +you need not, I'm sure, fear their criticism." + +"They got one idiot there, already," Stott remarked somewhat sulkily. + +"You surely do not regard your own child as likely to develop into an +idiot, Stott!" Challis's tone was one of rebuke. + +Stott shifted in his chair and his eyes flickered uncertainly in the +direction of the cradle. "Dr. O'Connell says 'twill," he said. + +"When did he see the child last?" asked Challis. + +"Not since 'twere a week old, sir," replied Ellen. + +"In that case his authority goes for nothing, and, then, by the way, I +suppose the child has not been vaccinated?" + +"Not yet, sir." + +"Better have that done. Get Walters. I'll make myself responsible. I'll +get him to come." + +Before Challis left, it was decided that the Stotts should move to Pym +in February. + +When the great landowner had gone, Mrs. Stott looked wistfully at her +husband. + +"You ain't fair to the child, George," she said. "There's more than you +or any one sees, more than Mr. Challis, even." + +Stott stared moodily into the fire. + +"And it won't be so out of the way far for you, at Pym, with your bike," +she continued; "and we _can't_ stop 'ere." + +"We might 'a took a place in Ailesworth," said Stott. + +"But it'll be so much 'ealthier for 'im up at Pym," protested Ellen. +"It'll be fine air up there for 'im." + +"Oh! _'im_. Yes, all right for _'im_," said Stott, and spat into the +fire. Then he took his cap and went out. He kept his eyes away from the +cradle. + + +IV + +Harvey Walters lived in Wenderby, but his consulting-rooms were in +Harley Street, and he did not practise in his own neighbourhood; +nevertheless he vaccinated Victor Stott to oblige Challis. + +"Well?" asked Challis a few days later, "what do you make of him, +Walters? No clichés, now, and no professional jargon." + +"Candidly, I don't know," replied Walters, after a thoughtful interval. + +"How many times have you seen him?" + +"Four, altogether." + +"Good patient? Healthy flesh and that sort of thing?" + +"Splendid." + +"Did he look you in the eyes?" + +"Once, only once, the first time I visited the house." + +Challis nodded. "My own experience, exactly. And did you return that +look of his?" + +"Not willingly. It was, I confess, not altogether a pleasant +experience." + +"Ah!" + +Challis was silent for a few moments, and it was Walters who took up the +interrogatory. + +"Challis!" + +"Yes?" + +"Have you, now, some feeling of, shall I say, distaste for the child? Do +you feel that you have no wish to see it again?" + +"Is it that exactly?" parried Challis. + +"If not, what is it?" asked Walters. + +"In my own case," said Challis, "I can find an analogy only in my +attitude towards my 'head' at school. In his presence I was always +intimidated by my consciousness of his superior learning. I felt +unpleasantly ignorant, small, negligible. Curiously enough, I see +something of the same expression of feeling in the attitude of that +feeble Crashaw to myself. Well, one makes an attempt at self-assertion, +a kind of futile bragging; and one knows the futility of it--at the +time. But, afterwards, one finds excuse and seeks to belittle the +personality and attainment of the person one feared. At school we did +not love the 'head,' and, as schoolboys will, we were always trying to +run him down. 'Next time he rags me, I'll cheek him,' was our usual +boast--but we never did. Let's be honest, Walters, are not you and I +exhibiting much the same attitude towards this extraordinary child? +Didn't he produce the effect upon you that I've described? Didn't you +have a little of the 'fifth form' feeling,--a boy under examination?" + +Walters smiled and screwed his mouth on one side. "The thing is so +absurd," he said. + +"That is what we used to say at school," replied Challis. + + +V + +The Stotts' move to Pym was not marked by any incident. Mrs. Stott and +her boy were not unduly stared upon as they left Stoke--the children +were in school--and their entry into the new cottage was uneventful. + +They moved on a Thursday. On Sunday morning they had their first +visitor. + +He came mooning round the fence that guarded the Stotts' garden from the +little lane--it was hardly more than a footpath. He had a great +shapeless head that waggled heavily on his shoulders, his eyes were +lustreless, and his mouth hung open, frequently his tongue lagged out. +He made strange, inhuman noises. "A-ba-ba," was his nearest approach to +speech. + +"Now, George," called Mrs. Stott, "look at that. It's Mrs. 'Arrison's +boy what Mrs. Reade's spoke about. Now, is 'e anythink like ..." she +paused, "anythink like 'im?" and she indicated the cradle in the +sitting-room. + +"What's 'e want, 'angin' round 'ere?" replied Stott, disregarding the +comparison. "'Ere, get off," he called, and he went into the garden and +picked up a stick. + +The idiot shambled away. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HIS FATHER'S DESERTION + + +I + +The strongest of all habits is that of acquiescence. It is this habit of +submission that explains the admired patience and long-suffering of the +abjectly poor. The lower the individual falls, the more unconquerable +becomes the inertia of mind which interferes between him and revolt +against his condition. All the miseries of the flesh, even starvation, +seem preferable to the making of an effort great enough to break this +habit of submission. + +Ginger Stott was not poor. For a man in his station of life he was +unusually well provided for, but in him the habit of acquiescence was +strongly rooted. Before his son was a year old, Stott had grown to +loathe his home, to dread his return to it, yet it did not occur to him +until another year had passed that he could, if he would, set up another +establishment on his own account; that he could, for instance, take a +room in Ailesworth, and leave his wife and child in the cottage. For two +years he did not begin to think of this idea, and then it was suddenly +forced upon him. + +Ever since they had overheard those strangely intelligent +self-communings, the Stotts had been perfectly aware that their +wonderful child could talk if he would. Ellen Mary, pondering that +single expression, had read a world of meaning into her son's murmurs of +"learning." In her simple mind she understood that his deliberate +withholding of speech was a reserve against some strange manifestation. + +The manifestation, when it came, was as remarkable as it was unexpected. + +The armchair in which Henry Challis had once sat was a valued +possession, dedicated by custom to the sole use of George Stott. Ever +since he had been married, Stott had enjoyed the full and undisputed use +of that chair. Except at his meals, he never sat in any other, and he +had formed a fixed habit of throwing himself into that chair immediately +on his return from his work at the County Ground. + +One evening in November, however, when his son was just over two years +old, Stott found his sacred chair occupied. He hesitated a moment, and +then went in to the kitchen to find his wife. + +"That child's in my chair," he said. + +Ellen was setting the tray for her husband's tea. "Yes ... I know," she +replied. "I--I did mention it, but 'e 'asn't moved." + +"Well, take 'im out," ordered Stott, but he dropped his voice. + +"Does it matter?" asked his wife. "Tea's just ready. Time that's done +'e'll be ready for 'is bath." + +"Why can't you move 'im?" persisted Stott gloomily. "'E knows it's my +chair." + +"There! kettle's boilin', come in and 'ave your tea," equivocated the +diplomatic Ellen. + +During the progress of the meal, the child still sat quietly in his +father's chair, his little hands resting on his knees, his eyes wide +open, their gaze abstracted, as usual, from all earthly concerns. + +But after tea Stott was heroic. He had reached the limit of his +endurance. One of his deep-seated habits was being broken, and with it +snapped his habit of acquiescence. He rose to his feet and faced his son +with determination, and Stott had a bull-dog quality about him that was +not easily defeated. + +"Look 'ere! Get out!" he said. "That's _my_ chair!" + +The child very deliberately withdrew his attention from infinity and +regarded the dogged face and set jaw of his father. Stott returned the +stare for the fraction of a second, and then his eyes wavered and +dropped, but he maintained his resolution. + +"You got to get out," he said, "or I'll make you." + +Ellen Mary gripped the edge of the table, but she made no attempt to +interfere. + +There was a tense, strained silence. Then Stott began to breathe +heavily. He lifted his long arms for a moment and raised his eyes, he +even made a tentative step towards the usurped throne. + +The child sat calm, motionless; his eyes were fixed upon his father's +face with a sublime, undeviating confidence. + +Stott's arms fell to his sides again, he shuffled his feet. One more +effort he made, a sudden, vicious jerk, as though he would do the thing +quickly and be finished with it; then he shivered, his resolution broke, +and he shambled evasively to the door. + +"God damn," he muttered. At the door he turned for an instant, swore +again in the same words, and went out into the night. + +To Stott, moodily pacing the Common, this thing was incomprehensible, +some horrible infraction of the law of normal life, something to be +condemned; altered, if possible. It was unprecedented, and it was, +therefore, wrong, unnatural, diabolic, a violation of the sound +principles which uphold human society. + +To Ellen Mary it was merely a miracle, the foreshadowing of greater +miracles to come. And to her was manifested, also, a minor miracle, for +when his father had gone, the child looked at his mother and gave out +his first recorded utterance. + +"'Oo _is_ God?" he said. + +Ellen Mary tried to explain, but before she had stammered out many +words, her son abstracted his gaze, climbed down out of the chair, and +intimated with his usual grunt that he desired his bath and his bed. + + +II + +The depths of Stott were stirred that night. He had often said that "he +wouldn't stand it much longer," but the words were a mere formula: he +had never even weighed their intention. As he paced the Common, he +muttered them again to the night, with new meaning; he saw new +possibilities, and saw that they were practicable. "I've 'ad enough," +was his new phrase, and he added another that gave evidence of a new +attitude. "Why not?" he said again and again. "And why not?" + +Stott's mind was not analytical. He did not examine his problem, weigh +this and that and draw a balanced deduction. He merely saw a picture of +peace and quiet, in a room at Ailesworth, in convenient proximity to his +work (he made an admirable groundsman and umpire, his work absorbed him) +and, perhaps, he conceived some dim ideal of pleasant evenings spent in +the companionship of those who thought in the same terms as himself; +who shared in his one interest; whose speech was of form, averages, the +preparation of wickets, and all the detail of cricket. + +Stott's ambition to have a son and to teach him the mysteries of his +father's success had been dwindling for some time past. On this night it +was finally put aside. Stott's "I've 'ad enough" may be taken to include +that frustrated ideal. No more experiments for him, was the +pronouncement that summed up his decision. + +Still there were difficulties. Economically he was free, he could allow +his wife thirty shillings a week, more than enough for her support and +that of her child; but--what would she say, how would she take his +determination? A determination it was, not a proposal. And the +neighbours, what would they say? Stott anticipated a fuss. "She'll say +I've married 'er, and it's my duty to stay by 'er," was his anticipation +of his wife's attitude. He did not profess to understand the ways of the +sex, but some rumours of misunderstandings between husbands and wives of +his own class had filtered through his absorption in cricket. + +He stumbled home with a mind prepared for dissension. + +He found his wife stitching by the fire. The door at the foot of the +stairs was closed. The room presented an aspect of cleanly, cheerful +comfort; but Stott entered with dread, not because he feared to meet his +wife, but because there was a terror sleeping in that house. + +His armchair was empty now, but he hesitated before he sat down in it. +He took off his cap and rubbed the seat and back of the chair +vigorously: a child of evil had polluted it, the chair might still hold +enchantment.... + +"I've 'ad enough," was his preface, and there was no need for any +further explanation. + +Ellen Mary let her hands fall into her lap, and stared dreamily at the +fire. + +"I'm sorry it's come to this, George," she said, "but it 'asn't been my +fault no more'n it's been your'n. Of course I've seen it a-comin', and I +knowed it _'ad_ to be, some time; but I don't think there need be any +'ard words over it. I don't expec' you to understand 'im, no more'n I do +myself--it isn't in nature as you should, but all said and done, there's +no bones broke, and if we 'ave to part, there's no reason as we +shouldn't part peaceable." + +That speech said nearly everything. Afterwards it was only a question of +making arrangements, and in that there was no difficulty. + +Another man might have felt a little hurt, a little neglected by the +absence of any show of feeling on his wife's part, but Stott passed it +by. He was singularly free from all sentimentality; certain primitive, +human emotions seem to have played no part in his character. At this +moment he certainly had no thought that he was being carelessly treated; +he wanted to be free from the oppression of that horror upstairs--so he +figured it--and the way was made easy for him. + +He nodded approval, and made no sign of any feeling. + +"I shall go to-morrer," he said, and then, "I'll sleep down 'ere +to-night." He indicated the sofa upon which he had slept for so many +nights at Stoke, after his tragedy had been born to him. + +Ellen Mary had said nearly everything, but when she had made up a bed +for her husband in the sitting-room, she paused, candle in hand, before +she bade him good-night. + +"Don't wish 'im 'arm, George," she said. "'E's different from us, and we +don't understand 'im proper, but some day----" + +"I don't wish 'im no 'arm," replied Stott, and shuddered. "I don't wish +'im no 'arm," he repeated, as he kicked off the boot he had been +unlacing. + +"You mayn't never see 'im again," added Ellen Mary. + +Stott stood upright. In his socks, he looked noticeably shorter than his +wife. "I suppose not," he said, and gave a deep sigh of relief. "Well, +thank Gawd for that, anyway." + +Ellen Mary drew her lips together. For some dim, unrealised reason, she +wished her husband to leave the cottage with a feeling of goodwill +towards the child, but she saw that her wish was little likely to be +fulfilled. + +"Well, good-night, George," she said, after a few seconds of silence, +and she added pathetically, as she turned at the foot of the stairs: +"Don't wish 'im no harm." + +"I won't," was all the assurance she received. + +When she had gone, and the door was closed behind her, Stott padded +silently to the window and looked out. A young moon was dipping into a +bank of cloud, and against the feeble brightness he could see an +uncertain outline of bare trees. He pulled the curtain across the +window, and turned back to the warm cheerfulness of the room. + +"Shan't never see 'im again," he murmured, "thank Gawd!" He undressed +quietly, blew out the lamp and got between the sheets of his improvised +bed. For some minutes he stared at the leaping shadows on the ceiling. +He was wondering why he had ever been afraid of the child. "After all, +'e's only a blarsted freak," was the last thought in his mind before he +fell asleep. + +And with that pronouncement Stott passes out of the history of the +Hampdenshire Wonder. He was in many ways an exceptional man, and his +name will always be associated with the splendid successes of +Hampdenshire cricket, both before and after the accident that destroyed +his career as a bowler. He was not spoiled by his triumphs: those two +years of celebrity never made Stott conceited, and there are undoubtedly +many traits in his character which call for our admiration. He is still +in his prime, an active agent in finding talent for his county, and in +developing that talent when found. Hampdenshire has never come into the +field with weak bowling, and all the credit belongs to Ginger Stott. + +One sees that he was not able to appreciate the wonderful gifts of his +own son, but Stott was an ignorant man, and men of intellectual +attainment failed even as Stott failed in this respect. Ginger Stott was +a success in his own walk of life, and that fact should command our +admiration. It is not for us to judge whether his attainments were more +or less noble than the attainments of his son. + + +III + +One morning, two days after Stott had left the cottage, Ellen Mary was +startled by the sudden entrance of her child into the sitting-room. He +toddled in hastily from the garden, and pointed with excitement through +the window. + +Ellen Mary was frightened; she had never seen her child other than +deliberate, calm, judicial, in all his movements. In a sudden spasm of +motherly love she bent to pick him up, to caress him. + +"No," said the Wonder, with something that approached disgust in his +tone and attitude. "No," he repeated. "What's 'e want 'angin' round +'ere? Send 'im off." He pointed again to the window. + +Ellen Mary looked out and saw a grinning, slobbering obscenity at the +gate. Stott had scared the idiot away, but in some curious, inexplicable +manner he had learned that his persecutor and enemy had gone, and he had +returned, and had made overtures to the child that walked so sedately up +and down the path of the little garden. + +Ellen Mary went out. "You be off," she said. + +"A-ba, a-ba-ba," bleated the idiot, and pointed at the house. + +"Be off, I tell you!" said Ellen Mary fiercely. But still the idiot +babbled and pointed. + +Ellen Mary stooped to pick up a stick. The idiot blenched; he understood +that movement well enough, though it was a stone he anticipated, not a +stick; with a foolish cry he dropped his arms and slouched away down the +lane. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +HIS DEBT TO HENRY CHALLIS + + +I + +Challis was out of England for more than three years after that one +brief intrusion of his into the affairs of Mr. and Mrs. Stott. During +the interval he was engaged upon those investigations, the results of +which are embodied in his monograph on the primitive peoples of the +Melanesian Archipelago. It may be remembered that he followed Dr. W. H. +R. Rivers' and Dr. C. G. Seligmann's inquiry into the practice and +theory of native customs. Challis developed his study more particularly +with reference to the earlier evolution of Totemism, and he was able by +his patient work among the Polynesians of Tikopia and Ontong Java, and +his comparisons of those sporadic tribes with the Papuasians of Eastern +New Guinea, to correct some of the inferences with regard to the origins +of exogamy made by Dr. J. G. Frazer in his great work on that subject, +published some years before. A summary of Challis's argument may be +found in vol. li. of the _Journal of the Royal Anthropological +Institute_. + +When he returned to England, Challis shut himself up at Chilborough. He +had engaged a young Cambridge man, Gregory Lewes, as his secretary and +librarian, and the two devoted all their time to planning, writing, and +preparing the monograph referred to. + +In such circumstances it is hardly remarkable that Challis should have +completely forgotten the existence of the curious child which had +intrigued his interest nearly four years earlier, and it was not until +he had been back at Challis Court for more than eight months, that the +incursion of Percy Crashaw revived his memory of the phenomenon. + +The library at Challis Court occupies a suite of three rooms. The first +and largest of the three is part of the original structure of the house. +Its primitive use had been that of a chapel, a one-storey building +jutting out from the west wing. This Challis had converted into a very +practicable library with a continuous gallery running round at a height +of seven feet from the floor, and in it he had succeeded in arranging +some 20,000 volumes. But as his store of books grew--and at one period +it had grown very rapidly--he had been forced to build, and so he had +added first one and then the other of the two additional rooms which +became necessary. Outside, the wing had the appearance of an unduly +elongated chapel, as he had continued the original roof over his +addition, and copied the style of the old chapel architecture. The only +external alteration he had made had been the lowering of the sills of +the windows. + +It was in the furthest of these three rooms that Challis and his +secretary worked, and it was from here that they saw the gloomy figure +of the Rev. Percy Crashaw coming up the drive. + +This was the third time he had called. His two former visits had been +unrewarded, but that morning a letter had come from him, couched in +careful phrases, the purport of which had been a request for an +interview on a "matter of some moment." + +Challis frowned, and rose from among an ordered litter of manuscripts. + +"I shall have to see this man," he said to Lewes, and strode hastily out +of the library. + +Crashaw was perfunctorily apologetic, and Challis, looking somewhat out +of place, smoking a heavy wooden pipe in the disused, bleak +drawing-room, waited, almost silent, until his visitor should come to +the point. + +"... and the--er--matter of some moment, I mentioned," Crashaw mumbled +on, "is, I should say, not altogether irrelevant to the work you are at +present engaged upon." + +"Indeed!" commented Challis, with a lift of his thick eyebrows, "no +Polynesians come to settle in Stoke, I trust?" + +"On broad lines, relevant on broad, anthropological lines, I mean," said +Crashaw. + +Challis grunted. "Go on!" he said. + +"You may remember that curious--er--abnormal child of the Stotts?" asked +Crashaw. + +"Stotts? Wait a minute. Yes! Curious infant with an abnormally +intelligent expression and the head of a hydrocephalic?" + +Crashaw nodded. "Its development has upset me in a most unusual way," he +continued. "I must confess that I am entirely at a loss, and I really +believe that you are the only person who can give me any intelligent +assistance in the matter." + +"Very good of you," murmured Challis. + +"You see," said Crashaw, warming to his subject and interlacing his +fingers, "I happen, by the merest accident, I may say, to be the child's +godfather." + +"Ah! you have responsibilities!" commented Challis, with the first glint +of amusement in his eyes. + +"I have," said Crashaw, "undoubtedly I have." He leaned forward with his +hands still clasped together, and rested his forearms on his thighs. As +he talked he worked his hands up and down from the wrists, by way of +emphasis. "I am aware," he went on, "that on one point I can expect +little sympathy from you, but I make an appeal to you, nevertheless, as +a man of science and--and a magistrate; for ... for assistance." + +He paused and looked up at Challis, received a nod of encouragement and +developed his grievance. + +"I want to have the child certified as an idiot, and sent to an asylum." + +"On what grounds?" + +"He is undoubtedly lacking mentally," said Crashaw, "and his influence +is, or may be, malignant." + +"Explain," suggested Challis. + +For a few seconds Crashaw paused, intent on the pattern of the carpet, +and worked his hands slowly. Challis saw that the man's knuckles were +white, that he was straining his hands together. + +"He has denied God," he said at last with great solemnity. + +Challis rose abruptly, and went over to the window; the next words were +spoken to his back. + +"I have, myself, heard this infant of four years use the most abhorrent +blasphemy." + +Challis had composed himself. "Oh! I say; that's bad," he said as he +turned towards the room again. + +Crashaw's head was still bowed. "And whatever may be your own +philosophic doubts," he said, "I think you will agree with me that in +such a case as this, something should be done. To me it is horrible, +most horrible." + +"Couldn't you give me any details?" asked Challis. + +"They are most repugnant to me," answered Crashaw. + +"Quite, quite! I understand. But if you want any assistance.... Or do +you expect me to investigate?" + +"I thought it my duty, as his godfather, to see to the child's spiritual +welfare," said Crashaw, ignoring the question put to him, "although he +is not, now, one of my parishioners. I first went to Pym some few months +ago, but the mother interposed between me and the child. I was not +permitted to see him. It was not until a few weeks back that I met +him--on the Common, alone. Of course, I recognised him at once. He is +quite unmistakable." + +"And then?" prompted Challis. + +"I spoke to him, and he replied with, with--an abstracted air, without +looking at me. He has not the appearance in any way of a normal child. I +made a few ordinary remarks to him, and then I asked him if he knew his +catechism. He replied that he did not know the word 'catechism.' I may +mention that he speaks the dialect of the common people, but he has a +much larger vocabulary. His mother has taught him to read, it appears." + +"He seems to have a curiously apt intelligence," interpolated Challis. + +Crashaw wrung his clasped hands and put the comment on one side. "I +then spoke to him of some of the broad principles of the Church's +teaching," he continued. "He listened quietly, without interruption, and +when I stopped, he prompted me with questions." + +"One minute!" said Challis. "Tell me; what sort of questions? That is +most important." + +"I do not remember precisely," returned Crashaw, "but one, I think, was +as to the sources of the Bible. I did not read anything beyond simple +and somewhat unusual curiosity into those questions, I may say.... I +talked to him for some considerable time--I dare say for more than an +hour...." + +"No signs of idiocy, apparently, during all this?" + +"I consider it less a case of idiocy than one of possession, maleficent +possession," replied Crashaw. He did not see his host's grim smile. + +"Well, and the blasphemy?" prompted Challis. + +"At the end of my instruction, the child, still looking away from me, +shook his head and said that what I had told him was not true. I confess +that I was staggered. Possibly I lost my temper, somewhat. I may have +grown rather warm in my speech. And at last ..." Crashaw clenched his +hands and spoke in such a low voice that Challis could hardly hear him. +"At last he turned to me and said things which I could not possibly +repeat, which I pray that I may never hear again from the mouth of any +living being." + +"Profanities, obscenities, er--swear-words," suggested Challis. + +"Blasphemy, _blasphemy_," cried Crashaw. "Oh! I wonder that I did not +injure the child." + +Challis moved over to the window again. For more than a minute there was +silence in that big, neglected-looking room. Then Crashaw's feelings +began to find vent in words, in a long stream of insistent +asseverations, pitched on a rising note that swelled into a diapason of +indignation. He spoke of the position and power of his Church, of its +influence for good among the uneducated, agricultural population among +which he worked. He enlarged on the profound necessity for a living +religion among the poorer classes; and on the revolutionary tendency +towards socialism, which would be encouraged if the great restraining +power of a creed that enforced subservience to temporal power was once +shaken. And, at last, he brought his arguments to a head by saying that +the example of a child of four years old, openly defying a minister of +the Church, and repudiating the very conception of the Deity, was an +example which might produce a profound effect upon the minds of a +slow-thinking people; that such an example might be the leaven which +would leaven the whole lump; and that for the welfare of the whole +neighbourhood it was an instant necessity that the child should be put +under restraint, his tongue bridled, and any opportunity to proclaim his +blasphemous doctrines forcibly denied to him. Long before he had +concluded, Crashaw was on his feet, pacing the room, declaiming, waving +his arms. + +Challis stood, unanswering, by the window. He did not seem to hear; he +did not even shrug his shoulders. Not till Crashaw had brought his +argument to a culmination, and boomed into a dramatic silence, did +Challis turn and look at him. + +"But you cannot confine a child in an asylum on those grounds," he said; +"the law does not permit it." + +"The Church is above the law," replied Crashaw. + +"Not in these days," said Challis; "it is by law established!" + +Crashaw began to speak again, but Challis waved him down. "Quite, quite. +I see your point," he said, "but I must see this child myself. Believe +me, I will see what can be done. I will, at least, try to prevent his +spreading his opinions among the yokels." He smiled grimly. "I quite +agree with you that that is a consummation which is not to be desired." + +"You will see him soon?" asked Crashaw. + +"To-day," returned Challis. + +"And you will let me see you again, afterwards?" + +"Certainly." + +Crashaw still hesitated for a moment. "I might, perhaps, come with you," +he ventured. + +"On no account," said Challis. + + +II + +Gregory Lewes was astonished at the long absence of his chief; he was +more astonished when his chief returned. + +"I want you to come up with me to Pym, Lewes," said Challis; "one of my +tenants has been confounding the rector of Stoke. It is a matter that +must be attended to." + +Lewes was a fair-haired, hard-working young man, with a bent for science +in general that had not yet crystallised into any special study. He had +a curious sense of humour, that proved something of an obstacle in the +way of specialisation. He did not take Challis's speech seriously. + +"Are you going as a magistrate?" he asked; "or is it a matter for +scientific investigation?" + +"Both," said Challis. "Come along!" + +"Are you serious, sir?" Lewes still doubted. + +"Intensely. I'll explain as we go," said Challis. + +It is not more than a mile and a half from Challis Court to Pym. The +nearest way is by a cart track through the beech woods, that winds up +the hill to the Common. In winter this track is almost impassable, over +boot-top in heavy mud; but the early spring had been fairly dry, and +Challis chose this route. + +As they walked, Challis went through the early history of Victor Stott, +so far as it was known to him. "I had forgotten the child," he said; "I +thought it would die. You see, it is by way of being an extraordinary +freak of nature. It has, or had, a curious look of intelligence. You +must remember that when I saw it, it was only a few months old. But even +then it conveyed in some inexplicable way a sense of power. Every one +felt it. There was Harvey Walters, for instance--he vaccinated it; I +made him confess that the child made him feel like a school-boy. Only, +you understand, it had not spoken then----" + +"What conveyed that sense of power?" asked Lewes. + +"The way it had of looking at you, staring you out of countenance, +sizing you up and rejecting you. It did that, I give you my word; it did +all that at a few months old, and without the power of speech. Only, you +see, I thought it was merely a freak of some kind, some abnormality that +disgusted one in an unanalysed way. And I thought it would die. I +certainly thought it would die. I am most eager to see this new +development." + +"I haven't heard. It confounded Crashaw, you say? And it cannot be more +than four or five years old now?" + +"Four; four and a half," returned Challis, and then the conversation was +interrupted by the necessity of skirting a tiny morass of wet leaf-mould +that lay in a hollow. + +"Confounded Crashaw? I should think so," Challis went on, when they had +found firm going again. "The good man would not soil his devoted tongue +by any condescension to oratio recta, but I gathered that the child had +made light of his divine authority." + +"Great Cæsar!" ejaculated Lewes; "but that is immense. What did Crashaw +do--shake him?" + +"No; he certainly did not lay hands on him at all. His own expression +was that he did not know how it was he did not do the child an injury. +That is one of the things that interest me enormously. That power I +spoke of must have been retained. Crashaw must have been blue with +anger; he could hardly repeat the story to me, he was so agitated. It +would have surprised me less if he had told me he had murdered the +child. That I could have understood, perfectly." + +"It is, of course, quite incomprehensible to me, as yet," commented +Lewes. + +When they came out of the woods on to the stretch of common from which +you can see the great swelling undulations of the Hampden Hills, Challis +stopped. A spear of April sunshine had pierced the load of cloud towards +the west, and the bank of wood behind them gave shelter from the cold +wind that had blown fiercely all the afternoon. + +"It is a fine prospect," said Challis, with a sweep of his hand. "I +sometimes feel, Lewes, that we are over-intent on our own little narrow +interests. Here are you and I, busying ourselves in an attempt to throw +some little light--a very little it must be--on some petty problems of +the origin of our race. We are looking downwards, downwards always; +digging in old muck-heaps; raking up all kinds of unsavoury rubbish to +prove that we are born out of the dirt. And we have never a thought for +the future in all our work,--a future that may be glorious, who knows? +Here, perhaps in this village, insignificant from most points of view, +but set in a country that should teach us to raise our eyes from the +ground; here, in this tiny hamlet, is living a child who may become a +greater than Socrates or Shakespeare, a child who may revolutionise our +conceptions of time and space. There have been great men in the past who +have done that, Lewes; there is no reason for us to doubt that still +greater men may succeed them." + +"No; there is no reason for us to doubt that," said Lewes, and they +walked on in silence towards the Stotts' cottage. + + +III + +Challis knocked and walked in. They found Ellen Mary and her son at the +tea-table. + +The mother rose to her feet and dropped a respectful curtsy. The boy +glanced once at Gregory Lewes and then continued his meal as if he were +unaware of any strange presence in the room. + +"I'm sorry. I am afraid we are interrupting you," Challis apologised. +"Pray sit down, Mrs. Stott, and go on with your tea." + +"Thank you, sir. I'd just finished, sir," said Ellen Mary, and remained +standing with an air of quiet deference. + +Challis took the celebrated armchair, and motioned Lewes to the +window-sill, the nearest available seat for him. "Please sit down, Mrs. +Stott," he said, and Ellen Mary sat, apologetically. + +The boy pushed his cup towards his mother, and pointed to the teapot; he +made a grunting sound to attract her attention. + +"You'll excuse me, sir," murmured Ellen Mary, and she refilled the cup +and passed it back to her son, who received it without any +acknowledgment. Challis and Lewes were observing the boy intently, but +he took not the least notice of their scrutiny. He discovered no trace +of self-consciousness; Henry Challis and Gregory Lewes appeared to have +no place in the world of his abstraction. + +The figure the child presented to his two observers was worthy of +careful scrutiny. + +At the age of four and a half years, the Wonder was bald, save for a few +straggling wisps of reddish hair above the ears and at the base of the +skull, and a weak, sparse down, of the same colour, on the top of his +head. The eyebrows, too, were not marked by any line of hair, but the +eyelashes were thick, though short, and several shades darker than the +hair on the skull. + +The face is not so easily described. The mouth and chin were relatively +small, overshadowed by that broad cliff of forehead, but they were firm, +the chin well moulded, the lips thin and compressed. The nose was +unusual when seen in profile. There was no sign of a bony bridge, but it +was markedly curved and jutted out at a curious angle from the line of +the face. The nostrils were wide and open. None of these features +produced any effect of childishness; but this effect was partly achieved +by the contours of the cheeks, and by the fact that there was no +indication of any lines on the face. + +The eyes nearly always wore their usual expression of abstraction. It +was very rarely that the Wonder allowed his intelligence to be exhibited +by that medium. When he did, the effect was strangely disconcerting, +blinding. One received an impression of extraordinary concentration: it +was as though for an instant the boy was able to give one a glimpse of +the wonderful force of his intellect. When he looked one in the face +with intention, and suddenly allowed one to realise, as it were, all the +dominating power of his brain, one shrank into insignificance, one felt +as an ignorant, intelligent man may feel when confronted with some +elaborate theorem of the higher mathematics. "Is it possible that any +one can really understand these things?" such a man might think with +awe, and in the same way one apprehended some vast, inconceivable +possibilities of mind-function when the Wonder looked at one with, as I +have said, intention. + +He was dressed in a little jacket-suit, and wore a linen collar; the +knickerbockers, loose and badly cut, fell a little below the knees. His +stockings were of worsted, his boots clumsy and thick-soled, though +relatively tiny. One had the impression always that his body was fragile +and small, but as a matter of fact the body and limbs were, if anything, +slightly better developed than those of the average child of four and a +half years. + +Challis had ample opportunity to make these observations at various +periods. He began them as he sat in the Stotts' cottage. At first he did +not address the boy directly. + +"I hear your son has been having a religious controversy with Mr. +Crashaw," was his introduction to the object of his visit. + +"Indeed, sir!" Plainly this was not news to Mrs. Stott. + +"Your son told you?" suggested Challis. + +"Oh! no, sir, 'e never told me," replied Mrs. Stott, "'twas Mr. Crashaw. +'E's been 'ere several times lately." + +Challis looked sharply at the boy, but he gave no sign that he heard +what was passing. + +"Yes; Mr. Crashaw seems rather upset about it." + +"I'm sorry, sir, but----" + +"Yes; speak plainly," prompted Challis. "I assure you that you will have +no cause to regret any confidence you may make to me." + +"I can't see as it's any business of Mr. Crashaw's, sir, if you'll +forgive me for sayin' so." + +"He has been worrying you?" + +"'E 'as, sir, but 'e ..." she glanced at her son--she laid a stress on +the pronoun always when she spoke of him that differentiated its +significance--"'e 'asn't seen Mr. Crashaw again, sir." + +Challis turned to the boy. "You are not interested in Mr. Crashaw, I +suppose?" he asked. + +The boy took no notice of the question. + +Challis was piqued. If this extraordinary child really had an +intelligence, surely it must be possible to appeal to that intelligence +in some way. He made another effort, addressing Mrs. Stott. + +"I think we must forgive Mr. Crashaw, you know, Mrs. Stott. As I +understand it, your boy at the age of four years and a half has +defied--his cloth, if I may say so." He paused, and as he received no +answer, continued: "But I hope that matter may be easily arranged." + +"Thank you, sir," said Mrs. Stott. "It's very kind of you. I'm sure, I'm +greatly obliged to you, sir." + +"That's only one reason of my visit to you, however," Challis hesitated. +"I've been wondering whether I might not be able to help you and your +son in some other way. I understand that he has unusual power of--of +intelligence." + +"Indeed 'e 'as, sir," responded Mrs. Stott. + +"And he can read, can't he?" + +"I've learned 'im what I could, sir: it isn't much." + +"Well, perhaps I could lend him a few books." + +Challis made a significant pause, and again he looked at the boy; but as +there was no response, he continued: "Tell me what he has read." + +"We've no books, sir, and we never 'ardly see a paper now. All we 'ave +in the 'ouse is a Bible and two copies of Lillywhite's cricket annual as +my 'usband left be'ind." + +Challis smiled. "Has he read those?" he asked. + +"The Bible 'e 'as, I believe," replied Mrs. Stott. + +It was a conversation curious in its impersonality. Challis was +conscious of the anomaly that he was speaking in the boy's presence, +crediting him with a remarkable intelligence, and yet addressing a +frankly ignorant woman as though the boy was not in the room. Yet how +could he break that deliberate silence? It seemed to him as though there +must, after all, be some mistake; yet how account for Crashaw's story if +the boy were indeed an idiot? + +With a slight show of temper he turned to the Wonder. + +"Do you want to read?" he asked. "I have between forty and fifty +thousand books in my library. I think it possible that you might find +one or two which would interest you." + +The Wonder lifted his hand as though to ask for silence. For a minute, +perhaps, no one spoke. All waited, expectant; Challis and Lewes with +intent eyes fixed on the detached expression of the child's face, Ellen +Mary with bent head. It was a strange, yet very logical question that +came at last: + +"What should I learn out of all them books?" asked the Wonder. He did +not look at Challis as he spoke. + + +IV + +Challis drew a deep breath and turned towards Lewes. "A difficult +question, that, Lewes," he said. + +Lewes lifted his eyebrows and pulled at his fair moustache. "If you take +the question literally," he muttered. + +"You might learn--the essential part ... of all the knowledge that has +been ... discovered by mankind," said Challis. He phrased his sentence +carefully, as though he were afraid of being trapped. + +"Should I learn what I am?" asked the Wonder. + +Challis understood the question in its metaphysical acceptation. He had +the sense of a powerful but undirected intelligence working from the +simple premisses of experience; of a cloistered mind that had functioned +profoundly; a mind unbound by the tradition of all the speculations and +discoveries of man, the essential conclusions of which were contained in +that library at Challis Court. + +"No!" said Challis, after a perceptible interval, "that you will not +learn from any books in my possession, but you will find grounds for +speculation." + +"Grounds for speculation?" questioned the Wonder. He repeated the words +quite clearly. + +"Material--matter from which you can--er--formulate theories of your +own," explained Challis. + +The Wonder shook his head. It was evident that Challis's sentence +conveyed little or no meaning to him. + +He got down from his chair and took up an old cricket cap of his +father's, a cap which his mother had let out by the addition of another +gore of cloth that did not match the original material. He pulled this +cap carefully over his bald head, and then made for the door. + +At the threshold the strange child paused, and without looking at any +one present said: "I'll coom to your library," and went out. + +Challis joined Lewes at the window, and they watched the boy make his +deliberate way along the garden path and up the lane towards the fields +beyond. + +"You let him go out by himself?" asked Challis. + +"He likes to be in the air, sir," replied Ellen Mary. + +"I suppose you have to let him go his own way?" + +"Oh! yes, sir." + +"I will send the governess cart up for him to-morrow morning," said +Challis, "at ten o'clock. That is, of course, if you have no objection +to his coming." + +"'E said 'e'd coom, sir," replied Ellen Mary. Her tone implied that +there was no appeal possible against her son's statement of his wishes. + + +V + +"His methods do not lack terseness," remarked Lewes, when he and Challis +were out of earshot of the cottage. + +"His methods and manners are damnable," said Challis, "but----" + +"You were going to say?" prompted Lewes. + +"Well, what is your opinion?" + +"I am not convinced, as yet," said Lewes. + +"Oh, surely," expostulated Challis. + +"Not from objective, personal evidence. Let us put Crashaw out of our +minds for the moment." + +"Very well; go on, state your case." + +"He has, so far, made four remarks in our presence," said Lewes, +gesticulating with his walking stick. "Two of them can be neglected; his +repetition of your words, which he did not understand, and his +condescending promise to study your library." + +"Yes; I'm with you, so far." + +"Now, putting aside the preconception with which we entered the cottage, +was there really anything in the other two remarks? Were they not the +type of simple, unreasoning questions which one may often hear from the +mouth of a child of that age? 'What shall I learn from your books?' +Well, it is the natural question of the ignorant child, who has no +conception of the contents of books, no experience which would furnish +material for his imagination." + +"Well?" + +"The second remark is more explicable still. It is a remark we all make +in childhood, in some form or another. I remember quite well at the age +of six or seven asking my mother: 'Which is me, my soul or my body?' I +was brought up on the Church catechism. But you at once accepted these +questions--which, I maintain, were questions possible in the mouth of a +simple, ignorant child--in some deep, metaphysical acceptation. Don't +you think, sir, we should wait for further evidence before we attribute +any phenomenal intelligence to this child?" + +"Quite the right attitude to take, Lewes--the scientific attitude," +replied Challis. "Let's go by the lane," he added, as they reached the +entrance to the wood. + +For some few minutes they walked in silence; Challis with his head down, +his heavy shoulders humped. His hands were clasped behind him, dragging +his stick as it were a tail, which he occasionally cocked. He walked +with a little stumble now and again, his eyes on the ground. Lewes +strode with a sure foot, his head up, and he slashed at the tangle of +last year's growth on the bank whenever he passed some tempting butt for +the sword-play of his stick. + +"Do you think, then," said Challis at last, "that much of the +atmosphere--you must have marked the atmosphere--of the child's +personality, was a creation of our own minds, due to our +preconceptions?" + +"Yes, I think so," Lewes replied, a touch of defiance in his tone. + +"Isn't that what you _want_ to believe?" asked Challis. + +Lewes hit at a flag of dead bracken and missed. "You mean...?" he +prevaricated. + +"I mean that that is a much stronger influence than any preconception, +my dear Lewes. I'm no pragmatist, as you know; but there can be no doubt +that with the majority of us the wish to believe a thing is true +constitutes the truth of that thing for us. And that is, in my opinion, +the wrong attitude for either scientist or philosopher. Now, in the case +we are discussing, I suppose at bottom I should like to agree with you. +One does not like to feel that a child of four and a half has greater +intellectual powers than oneself. Candidly, I do not like it at all." + +"Of course not! But I can't think that----" + +"You can if you try; you would at once if you wished to," returned +Challis, anticipating the completion of Lewes's sentence. + +"I'll admit that there are some remarkable facts in the case of this +child," said Lewes, "but I do not see why we should, as yet, take the +whole proposition for granted." + +"No! I am with you there," returned Challis. And no more was said until +they were nearly home. + +Just before they turned into the drive, however, Challis stopped. "Do +you know, Lewes," he said, "I am not sure that I am doing a wise thing +in bringing that child here!" + +Lewes did not understand. "No, sir? Why not?" he asked. + +"Why, think of the possibilities of that child, if he has all the powers +I credit him with," said Challis. "Think of his possibilities for +original thought if he is kept away from all the traditions of this +futile learning." He waved an arm in the direction of the elongated +chapel. + +"Oh! but surely," remonstrated Lewes, "that is a necessary groundwork. +Knowledge is built up step by step." + +"Is it? I wonder. I sometimes doubt," said Challis. "Yes, I sometimes +doubt whether we have ever learned anything at all that is worth +knowing. And, perhaps, this child, if he were kept away from books.... +However, the thing is done now, and in any case he would never have been +able to dodge the School attendance officer." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +HIS FIRST VISIT TO CHALLIS COURT + + +I + +"Shall you be able to help me in collating your notes of the Tikopia +observations to-day, sir?" Lewes asked next morning. He rose from the +breakfast-table and lit a cigarette. There was no ceremony between +Challis and his secretary. + +"You forget our engagement for ten o'clock," said Challis. + +"Need that distract us?" + +"It need not, but doesn't it seem to you that it may furnish us with +valuable material?" + +"Hardly pertinent, sir, is it?" + +"What line do you think of taking up, Lewes?" asked Challis with +apparent irrelevance. + +"With regard to this--this phenomenon?" + +"No, no. I was speaking of your own ambitions." Challis had sauntered +over to the window; he stood, with his back to Lewes, looking out at the +blue and white of the April sky. + +Lewes frowned. He did not understand the gist of the question. "I +suppose there is a year's work on this book before me yet," he said. + +"Quite, quite," replied Challis, watching a cloud shadow swarm up the +slope of Deane Hill. "Yes, certainly a year's work. I was thinking of +the future." + +"I have thought of laboratory work in connection with psychology," said +Lewes, still puzzled. + +"I thought I remembered your saying something of the kind," murmured +Challis absently. "We are going to have more rain. It will be a late +spring this year." + +"Had the question any bearing on our engagement of this morning?" Lewes +was a little anxious, uncertain whether this inquiry as to his future +had not some particular significance; a hint, perhaps, that his services +would not be required much longer. + +"Yes; I think it had," said Challis. "I saw the governess cart go up the +road a few minutes since." + +"I suppose the boy will be here in a quarter of an hour?" said Lewes by +way of keeping up the conversation. He was puzzled; he did not know +Challis in this mood. He did not conceive it possible that Challis could +be nervous about the arrival of so insignificant a person as this Stott +child. + +"It's all very ridiculous," broke out Challis suddenly; and he turned +away from the window, and joined Lewes by the fire. "Don't you think +so?" + +"I'm afraid I don't follow you, sir." + +Challis laughed. "I'm not surprised," he said; "I was a trifle +inconsecutive. But I wish you were more interested in this child, Lewes. +The thought of him engrosses me, and yet I don't want to meet him. I +should be relieved to hear that he wasn't coming. Surely you, as a +student of psychology ..." he broke off with a lift of his heavy +shoulders. + +"Oh! Yes! I _am_ interested, certainly, as you say, as a student of +psychology. We ought to take some measurements. The configuration of the +skull is not abnormal otherwise than in its relation to the development +of the rest of his body, but ..." Lewes meandered off into somewhat +abstruse speculation with regard to the significance of craniology. + +Challis nodded his head and murmured: "Quite, quite," occasionally. He +seemed glad that Lewes should continue to talk. + +The lecture was interrupted by the appearance of the governess cart. + +"By Jove, he _has_ come," ejaculated Challis in the middle of one of +Lewes's periods. "You'll have to see me through this, my boy. I'm damned +if I know how to take the child." + +Lewes flushed, annoyed at the interruption of his lecture. He had +believed that he had been interesting. "Curse the kid," was the thought +in his mind as he followed Challis to the window. + + +II + +Jessop, the groom deputed to fetch the Wonder from Pym, looked a little +uneasy, perhaps a little scared. When he drew up at the porch, the child +pointed to the door of the cart and indicated that it was to be opened +for him. He was evidently used to being waited upon. When this command +had been obeyed, he descended deliberately and then pointed to the front +door. + +"Open!" he said clearly, as Jessop hesitated. The Wonder knew nothing of +bells or ceremony. + +Jessop came down from the cart and rang. + +The butler opened the door. He was an old servant and accustomed to his +master's eccentricities, but he was not prepared for the vision of that +strange little figure, with a large head in a parti-coloured +cricket-cap, an apparition that immediately walked straight by him into +the hall, and pointed to the first door he came to. + +"Oh, dear! Well, to be sure," gasped Heathcote. "Why, whatever----" + +"Open!" commanded the Wonder, and Heathcote obeyed, weak-kneed. + +The door chanced to be the right one, the door of the breakfast-room, +and the Wonder walked in, still wearing his cap. + +Challis came forward to meet him with a conventional greeting. "I'm +glad you were able to come ..." he began, but the child took no notice; +he looked rapidly round the room, and not finding what he wanted, +signified his desire by a single word. + +"Books," he said, and looked at Challis. + +Heathcote stood at the door, hesitating between amazement and +disapproval. "I've never seen the like," was how he phrased his +astonishment later, in the servants' hall, "never in all my born days. +To see that melon-'eaded himp in a cricket-cap hordering the master +about. Well, there----" + +"Jessop says he fair got the creeps drivin' 'im over," said the cook. +"'E says the child's not right in 'is 'ead." + +Much embroidery followed in the servants' hall. + + + + +INTERLUDE + + +This brief history of the Hampdenshire Wonder is marked by a stereotyped +division into three parts, an arbitrary arrangement dependent on the +experience of the writer. The true division becomes manifest at this +point. The life of Victor Stott was cut into two distinct sections, +between which there is no correlation. The first part should tell the +story of his mind during the life of experience, the time occupied in +observation of the phenomena of life presented to him in fact, without +any specific teaching on the theories of existence and progress, or on +the speculation as to ultimate destiny. The second part should deal with +his entry into the world of books; into that account of a long series of +collated experiments and partly verified hypotheses we call science; +into the imperfectly developed system of inductive and deductive logic +which determines mathematics and philosophy; into the long, inaccurate +and largely unverifiable account of human blindness and error known as +history; and into the realm of idealism, symbol, and pitiful pride we +find in the story of poetry, letters, and religion. + +I will confess that I once contemplated the writing of such a history. +It was Challis who, in his courtly, gentle way, pointed out to me that +no man living had the intellectual capacity to undertake so profound a +work. + +For some three months before I had this conversation with Challis, I had +been wrapped in solitude, dreaming, speculating. I had been uplifted in +thought, I had come to believe myself inspired as a result of my +separation from the world of men, and of the deep introspection and +meditation in which I had been plunged. I had arrived at a point, +perhaps not far removed from madness, at which I thought myself capable +of setting out the true history of Victor Stott. + +Challis broke the spell. He cleared away the false glamour which was +blinding and intoxicating me and brought me back to a condition of +open-eyed sanity. To Challis I owe a great debt. + +Yet at the moment I was sunk in depression. All the glory of my vision +had faded; the afterglow was quenched in the blackness of a night that +drew out of the east and fell from the zenith as a curtain of utter +darkness. + +Again Challis came to my rescue. He brought me a great sheaf of notes. + +"Look here," he said, "if you can't write a true history of that strange +child, I see no reason why you should not write his story as it is +known to you, as it impinges on your own life. After all, you, in many +ways, know more of him than any one. You came nearest to receiving his +confidence." + +"But only during the last few months," I said. + +"Does that matter?" said Challis with an upheaval of his +shoulders--"shrug" is far too insignificant a word for that mountainous +humping. "Is any biography founded on better material than you have at +command?" + +He unfolded his bundle of notes. "See here," he said, "here is some +magnificent material for you--first-hand observations made at the time. +Can't you construct a story from that?" + +Even then I began to cast my story in a slightly biographical form. I +wrote half a dozen chapters, and read them to Challis. + +"Magnificent, my dear fellow," was his comment, "magnificent; but no one +will believe it." + +I had been carried away by my own prose, and with the natural vanity of +the author, I resented intensely his criticism. + +For some weeks I did not see Challis again, and I persisted in my futile +endeavour, but always as I wrote that killing suggestion insinuated +itself: "No one will believe you." At times I felt as a man may feel who +has spent many years in a lunatic asylum; and after his release is for +ever engaged in a struggle to allay the doubts of a leering suspicion. + +I gave up the hopeless task at last, and sought out Challis again. + +"Write it as a story," he suggested, "and give up the attempt to carry +conviction." + +And in that spirit, adopting the form of a story, I did begin, and in +that form I hope to finish. + +But here as I reach the great division, the determining factor of Victor +Stott's life, I am constrained to pause and apologise. I have become +uncomfortably conscious of my own limitations, and the feeble, ephemeral +methods I am using. I am trifling with a wonderful story, embroidering +my facts with the tawdry detail of my own imagining. + +I saw--I see--no other way. + +This is, indeed, a preface, yet I prefer to put it in this place, since +it was at this time I wrote it. + + * * * * * + +On the Common a faint green is coming again like a mist among the +ash-trees, while the oak is still dead and bare. Last year the oak came +first. + +They say we shall have a wet summer. + + + + +PART TWO (_Continued_) + +THE WONDER AMONG BOOKS + + + + +PART TWO (_Continued_) + +THE WONDER AMONG BOOKS + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +HIS PASSAGE THROUGH THE PRISON OF KNOWLEDGE + + +I + +Challis led the way to the library; Lewes, petulant and mutinous, hung +in the rear. + +The Wonder toddled forward, unabashed, to enter his new world. On the +threshold, however, he paused. His comprehensive stare took in a +sweeping picture of enclosing walls of books, and beyond was a vista of +further rooms, of more walls all lined from floor to ceiling with +records of human discovery, endeavour, doubt, and hope. + +The Wonder stayed and stared. Then he took two faltering steps into the +room and stopped again, and, finally, he looked up at Challis with doubt +and question; his gaze no longer quelling and authoritative, but +hesitating, compliant, perhaps a little child-like. + +"'Ave you read all these?" he asked. + +It was a curious picture. The tall figure of Challis, stooping, as +always, slightly forward; Challis, with his seaman's eyes and scholar's +head, his hands loosely clasped together behind his back, paying such +scrupulous attention to that grotesque representative of a higher +intellectuality, clothed in the dress of a villager, a patched +cricket-cap drawn down over his globular skull, his little arms hanging +loosely at his sides; who, nevertheless, even in this new, strange +aspect of unwonted humility bore on his face the promise of some +ultimate development which differentiated him from all other humanity, +as the face of humanity is differentiated from the face of its +prognathous ancestor. + +The scene is set in a world of books, and in the background lingers the +athletic figure and fair head of Lewes, the young Cambridge +undergraduate, the disciple of science, hardly yet across the threshold +which divides him from the knowledge of his own ignorance. + +"'Ave you read all these?" asked the Wonder. + +"A greater part of them--in effect," replied Challis. "There is much +repetition, you understand, and much record of experiment which becomes, +in a sense, worthless when the conclusions are either finally accepted +or rejected." + +The eyes of the Wonder shifted and their expression became abstracted; +he seemed to lose consciousness of the outer world; he wore the look +which you may see in the eyes of Jakob Schlesinger's portrait of the +mature Hegel, a look of profound introspection and analysis. + +There was an interval of silence, and then the Wonder unknowingly gave +expression to a quotation from Hamlet. "Words," he whispered +reflectively, and then again "words." + + +II + +Challis understood him. "You have not yet learned the meaning of words?" +he asked. + +The brief period--the only one recorded--of amazement and submission was +over. It may be that he had doubted during those few minutes of time +whether he was well advised to enter into that world of books, whether +he would not by so doing stunt his own mental growth. It may be that the +decision of so momentous a question should have been postponed for a +year--two years; to a time when his mind should have had further +possibilities for unlettered expansion. However that may be, he decided +now and finally. He walked to the table and climbed up on a chair. + +"Books about words," he commanded, and pointed at Challis and Lewes. + +They brought him the latest production of the twentieth century in many +volumes, the work of a dozen eminent authorities on the etymology of the +English language, and they seated him on eight volumes of the +_Encyclopædia Britannica_ (India paper edition) in order that he might +reach the level of the table. + +At first they tried to show him how his wonderful dictionary should be +used, but he pushed them on one side, neither then nor at any future +time would he consent to be taught--the process was too tedious for him, +his mind worked more fluently, rapidly, and comprehensively than the +mind of the most gifted teacher that could have been found for him. + +So Challis and Lewes stood on one side and watched him, and he was no +more embarrassed by their presence than if they had been in another +world, as, possibly, they were. + +He began with volume one, and he read the title page and the +introduction, the list of abbreviations, and all the preliminary matter +in due order. + +Challis noted that when the Wonder began to read, he read no faster than +the average educated man, but that he acquired facility at a most +astounding rate, and that when he had been reading for a few days his +eye swept down the column, as it were at a single glance. + +Challis and Lewes watched him for, perhaps, half an hour, and then, +seeing that their presence was of an entirely negligible value to the +Wonder, they left him and went into the farther room. + +"Well?" asked Challis, "what do you make of him?" + +"Is he reading or pretending to read?" parried Lewes. "Do you think it +possible that he could read so fast? Moreover, remember that he has +admitted that he knows few words of the English language, yet he does +not refer from volume to volume; he does not look up the meanings of the +many unknown words which must occur even in the introduction." + +"I know. I had noticed that." + +"Then you think he _is_ humbugging--pretending to read?" + +"No; that solution seems to me altogether unlikely. He could not, for +one thing, simulate that look of attention. Remember, Lewes, the child +is not yet five years old." + +"What is your explanation, then?" + +"I am wondering whether the child has not a memory beside which the +memory of a Macaulay would appear insignificant." + +Lewes did not grasp Challis's intention. "Even so ..." he began. + +"And," continued Challis, "I am wondering whether, if that is the case, +he is, in effect, prepared to learn the whole dictionary by heart, and, +so to speak, collate its contents later, in his mind." + +"Oh! Sir!" Lewes smiled. The supposition was too outrageous to be taken +seriously. "Surely, you can't mean that." There was something in Lewes's +tone which carried a hint of contempt for so far-fetched a hypothesis. + +Challis was pacing up and down the library, his hands clasped behind +him. "Yes, I mean it," he said, without looking up. "I put it forward as +a serious theory, worthy of full consideration." + +Lewes sneered. "Oh, surely not, sir," he said. + +Challis stopped and faced him. "Why not, Lewes; why not?" he asked, with +a kindly smile. "Think of the gap which separates your intellectual +powers from those of a Polynesian savage. Why, after all, should it be +impossible that this child's powers should equally transcend our own? A +freak, if you will, an abnormality, a curious effect of nature's, like +the giant puff-ball--but still----" + +"Oh! yes, sir, I grant you the thing is not impossible from a +theoretical point of view," argued Lewes, "but I think you are +theorising on altogether insufficient evidence. I am willing to admit +that such a freak is theoretically possible, but I have not yet found +the indications of such a power in the child." + +Challis resumed his pacing. "Quite, quite," he assented; "your method +is perfectly correct--perfectly correct. We must wait." + +At twelve o'clock Challis brought a glass of milk and some biscuits, and +set them beside the Wonder--he was apparently making excellent progress +with the letter "A." + +"Well, how are you getting on?" asked Challis. + +The Wonder took not the least notice of the question, but he stretched +out a little hand and took a biscuit and ate it, without looking up from +his reading. + +"I wish he'd answer questions," Challis remarked to Lewes, later. + +"I should prescribe a sound shaking," returned Lewes. + +Challis smiled. "Well, see here, Lewes," he said, "I'll take the +responsibility; you go and experiment; go and shake him." + +Lewes looked through the folding doors at the picture of the Wonder, +intent on his study of the great dictionary. "Since you've franked me," +he said, "I'll do it--but not now. I'll wait till he gives me some +occasion." + +"Good," replied Challis, "my offer holds ... and, by the way, I have no +doubt that an occasion will present itself. Doesn't it strike you as +likely, Lewes, that we shall see a good deal of the child here?" + +They stood for some minutes, watching the picture of that intent +student, framed in the written thoughts of his predecessors. + + +III + +The Wonder ignored an invitation to lunch; he ignored, also, the tray +that was sent in to him. He read on steadily till a quarter to six, by +which time he was at the end of "B," and then he climbed down from his +Encyclopædia, and made for the door. Challis, working in the farther +room, saw him and came out to open the door. + +"Are you going now?" he asked. + +The child nodded. + +"I will order the cart for you, if you will wait ten minutes," said +Challis. + +The child shook his head. "It's very necessary to have air," he said. + +Something in the tone and pronunciation struck Challis, and awoke a long +dormant memory. The sentence spoken, suddenly conjured up a vision of +the Stotts' cottage at Stoke, of the Stotts at tea, of a cradle in the +shadow, and of himself, sitting in an uncomfortable armchair and +swinging his stick between his knees. When the child had gone--walking +deliberately, and evidently regarding the mile-and-a-half walk through +the twilight wood and over the deserted Common as a trivial incident in +the day's business--Challis set himself to analyse that curious +association. + +As he strolled back across the hall to the library, he tried to +reconstruct the scene of the cottage at Stoke, and to recall the outline +of the conversation he had had with the Stotts. + +"Lewes!" he said, when he reached the room in which his secretary was +working. "Lewes, this is curious," and he described the associations +called up by the child's speech. "The curious thing is," he continued, +"that I had gone to advise Mrs. Stott to take a cottage at Pym, because +the Stoke villagers were hostile, in some way, and she did not care to +take the child out in the street. It is more than probable that I used +just those words, 'It is very necessary to have air,' very probable. +Now, what about my memory theory? The child was only six months old at +that time." + +Lewes appeared unconvinced. "There is nothing very unusual in the +sentence," he said. + +"Forgive me," replied Challis, "I don't agree with you. It is not +phrased as a villager would phrase it, and, as I tell you, it was not +spoken with the local accent." + +"You may have spoken the sentence to-day," suggested Lewes. + +"I may, of course, though I don't remember saying anything of the sort, +but that would not account for the curiously vivid association which was +conjured up." + +Lewes pursed his lips. "No, no, no," he said. "But that is hardly ground +for argument, is it?" + +"I suppose not," returned Challis thoughtfully; "but when you take up +psychology, Lewes, I should much like you to specialise on a careful +inquiry into association in connection with memory. I feel certain that +if one can reproduce, as nearly as may be, any complex sensation one has +experienced, no matter how long ago, one will stimulate what I may call +an abnormal memory of all the associations connected with that +experience. Just now I saw the interior of that room in the Stotts' +cottage so clearly that I had an image of a dreadful oleograph of +Disraeli hanging on the wall. But, now, I cannot for the life of me +remember whether there was such an oleograph or not. I do not remember +noticing it at the time." + +"Yes, that's very interesting," replied Lewes. "There is certainly a +wide field for research in that direction." + +"You might throw much light on our mental processes," replied Challis. + +(It was as the outcome of this conversation that Gregory Lewes did, two +years afterwards, take up this line of study. The only result up to the +present time is his little brochure _Reflexive Associations_, which has +added little to our knowledge of the subject.) + + +IV + +Challis's anticipation that he and Lewes would be greatly favoured by +the Wonder's company was fully realised. + +The child put in an appearance at half-past nine the next morning, just +as the governess cart was starting out to fetch him. When he was +admitted he went straight to the library, climbed on to the chair, upon +which the volumes of the Encyclopædia still remained, and continued his +reading where he had left off on the previous evening. + +He read steadily throughout the day without giving utterance to speech +of any kind. + +Challis and Lewes went out in the afternoon, and left the child deep in +study. They came in at six o'clock, and went to the library. The Wonder, +however, was not there. + +Challis rang the bell. + +"Has little Stott gone?" he asked when Heathcote came. + +"I 'aven't seen 'im, sir," said Heathcote. + +"Just find out if any one opened the door for him, will you?" said +Challis. "He couldn't possibly have opened that door for himself." + +"No one 'asn't let Master Stott hout, sir," Heathcote reported on his +return. + +"Are you sure?" + +"Quite sure, sir. I've made full hinquiries," said Heathcote with +dignity. + +"Well, we'd better find him," said Challis. + +"The window is open," suggested Lewes. + +"He would hardly ..." began Challis, walking over to the low sill of the +open window, but he broke off in his sentence and continued, "By Jove, +he did, though; look here!" + +It was, indeed, quite obvious that the Wonder had made his exit by the +window; the tiny prints of his feet were clearly marked in the mould of +the flower-bed; he had, moreover, disregarded all results of early +spring floriculture. + +"See how he has smashed those daffodils," said Lewes. "What an +infernally cheeky little brute he is!" + +"What interests me is the logic of the child," returned Challis. "I +would venture to guess that he wasted no time in trying to attract +attention. The door was closed, so he just got out of the window. I +rather admire the spirit; there is something Napoleonic about him. Don't +you think so?" + +Lewes shrugged his shoulders. Heathcote's expression was quite +non-committal. + +"You'd better send Jessop up to Pym, Heathcote," said Challis. "Let him +find out whether the child is safe at home." + +Jessop reported an hour afterwards that Master Stott had arrived home +quite safely, and Mrs. Stott was much obliged. + + +V + +Altogether the Wonder spent five days, or about forty hours, on his +study of the dictionary, and in the evening of his last day's work he +left again by the open window. Challis, however, had been keeping him +under fairly close observation, and knew that the preliminary task was +finished. + +"What can I give that child to read to-day?" he asked at breakfast next +morning. + +"I should reverse the arrangement; let him sit on the Dictionary and +read the Encyclopædia." Lewes always approached the subject of the +Wonder with a certain supercilious contempt. + +"You are not convinced yet that he isn't humbugging?" + +"No! Frankly, I'm not." + +"Well, well, we must wait for more evidence, before we argue about it," +said Challis, but they sat on over the breakfast-table, waiting for the +child to put in an appearance, and their conversation hovered over the +topic of his intelligence. + +"Half-past ten?" Challis ejaculated at last, with surprise. "We are +getting into slack habits, Lewes." He rose and rang the bell. + +"Apparently the Stott infant has had enough of it," suggested Lewes. +"Perhaps he has exhausted the interest of dictionary illustrations." + +"We shall see," replied Challis, and then to a deferentially appearing +Heathcote he said: "Has Master Stott come this morning?" + +"No, sir. Leastways, no one 'asn't let 'im in, sir." + +"It may be that he is mentally collating the results of the past two +days' reading," said Challis, as he and Lewes made their way to the +library. + +"Oh!" was all Lewes's reply, but it conveyed much of impatient contempt +for his employer's attitude. + +Challis only smiled. + +When they entered the library they found the Wonder hard at work, and he +had, of his own initiative, adopted the plan ironically suggested by +Lewes, for he had succeeded in transferring the Dictionary volumes to +the chair, and he was deep in volume one, of the eleventh edition of the +_Encyclopædia Britannica_. + +The library was never cleared up by any one except Challis or his +deputy, but an early housemaid had been sent to dust, and she had left +the casement of one of the lower lights of the window open. The means +of the Wonder's entrance was thus clearly in evidence. + +"It's Napoleonic," murmured Challis. + +"It's most infernal cheek," returned Lewes in a loud voice, "I should +not be at all surprised if that promised shaking were not administered +to-day." + +The Wonder took no notice. Challis says that on that morning his eyes +were travelling down the page at about the rate at which one could count +the lines. + +"He isn't reading," said Lewes. "No one could read as fast as that, and +most certainly not a child of four and a half." + +"If he would only answer questions ..." hesitated Challis. + +"Oh! of course he won't do that," said Lewes. "He's clever enough not to +give himself away." + +The two men went over to the table and looked down over the child's +shoulder. He was in the middle of the article on "Aberration"--a +technical treatise on optical physics. + +Lewes made a gesture. "Now do you believe he's humbugging?" he asked +confidently, and made no effort to modulate his voice. + +Challis drew his eyebrows together. "My boy," he said, and laid his hand +lightly on Victor Stott's shoulder, "can you understand what you are +reading there?" + +But no answer was vouchsafed. Challis sighed. "Come along, Lewes," he +said; "we must waste no more time." + +Lewes wore a look of smug triumph as they went to the farther room, but +he was clever enough to refrain from expressing his triumph in speech. + + +VI + +Challis gave directions that the window which the Wonder had found to be +his most convenient method of entry and exit should be kept open, except +at night; and a stool was placed under the sill inside the room, and a +low bench was fixed outside to facilitate the child's goings and +comings. Also, a little path was made across the flower-bed. + +The Wonder gave no trouble. He arrived at nine o'clock every morning, +Sunday included, and left at a quarter to six in the evening. On wet +days he was provided with a waterproof which had evidently been made by +his mother out of a larger garment. This he took off when he entered the +room and left on the stool under the window. + +He was given a glass of milk and a plate of bread-and-butter at twelve +o'clock; and except for this he demanded and received no attention. + +For three weeks he devoted himself exclusively to the study of the +Encyclopædia. + +Lewes was puzzled. + +Challis spoke little of the child during these three weeks, but he often +stood at the entrance to the farther rooms and watched the Wonder's eyes +travelling so rapidly yet so intently down the page. That sight had a +curious fascination for him; he returned to his own work by an effort, +and an hour afterwards he would be back again at the door of the larger +room. Sometimes Lewes would hear him mutter: "If he would only answer a +few questions...." There was always one hope in Challis's mind. He hoped +that some sort of climax might be reached when the Encyclopædia was +finished. The child must, at least, ask then for another book. Even if +he chose one for himself, his choice might furnish some sort of a test. + +So Challis waited and said little; and Lewes was puzzled, because he was +beginning to doubt whether it were possible that the child could sustain +a pose so long. That, in itself, would be evidence of extraordinary +abnormality. Lewes fumbled in his mind for another hypothesis. + +This reading craze may be symptomatic of some form of idiocy, he +thought; "and I don't believe he does read," was his illogical +deduction. + +Mrs. Stott usually came to meet her son, and sometimes she would come +early in the afternoon and stand at the window watching him at his work; +but neither Challis nor Lewes ever saw the Wonder display by any sign +that he was aware of his mother's presence. + +During those three weeks the Wonder held himself completely detached +from any intercourse with the world of men. At the end of that period he +once more manifested his awareness of the human factor in existence. + +Challis, if he spoke little to Lewes of the Wonder during this time, +maintained a strict observation of the child's doings. + +The Wonder began his last volume of the Encyclopædia one Wednesday +afternoon soon after lunch, and on Thursday morning, Challis was +continually in and out of the room watching the child's progress, and +noting his nearness to the end of the colossal task he had undertaken. + +At a quarter to twelve he took up his old position in the doorway, and +with his hands clasped behind his back he watched the reading of the +last forty pages. + +There was no slackening and no quickening in the Wonder's rate of +progress. He read the articles under "Z" with the same attention he had +given to the remainder of the work, and then, arrived at the last page, +he closed the volume and took up the Index. + +Challis suffered a qualm; not so much on account of the possible +postponement of the crisis he was awaiting, as because he saw that the +reading of the Index could only be taken as a sign that the whole study +had been unintelligent. No one could conceivably have any purpose in +reading through an index. + +And at this moment Lewes joined him in the doorway. + +"What volume has he got to now?" asked Lewes. + +"The Index," returned Challis. + +Lewes was no less quick in drawing his inference than Challis had been. + +"Well, that settles it, I should think," was Lewes's comment. + +"Wait, wait," returned Challis. + +The Wonder turned a dozen pages at once, glanced at the new opening, +made a further brief examination of two or three headings near the end +of the volume, closed the book, and looked up. + +"Have you finished?" asked Challis. + +The Wonder shook his head. "All this," he said--he indicated with a +small and dirty hand the pile of volumes that were massed round +him--"all this ..." he repeated, hesitated for a word, and again shook +his head with that solemn, deliberate impressiveness which marked all +his actions. + +Challis came towards the child, leaned over the table for a moment, and +then sat down opposite to him. Between the two protagonists hovered +Lewes, sceptical, inclined towards aggression. + +"I am most interested," said Challis. "Will you try to tell me, my boy, +what you think of--all this?" + +"So elementary ... inchoate ... a disjunctive ... patchwork," replied +the Wonder. His abstracted eyes were blind to the objective world of our +reality; he seemed to be profoundly analysing the very elements of +thought. + + +VII + +Then that almost voiceless child found words. Heathcote's announcement +of lunch was waved aside, the long afternoon waned, and still that thin +trickle of sound flowed on. + +The Wonder spoke in odd, pedantic phrases; he used the technicalities of +every science; he constructed his sentences in unusual ways, and often +he paused for a word and gave up the search, admitting that his meaning +could not be expressed through the medium of any language known to him. + +Occasionally Challis would interrupt him fiercely, would even rise from +his chair and pace the room, arguing, stating a point of view, combating +some suggestion that underlay the trend of that pitiless wisdom which in +the end bore him down with its unanswerable insistence. + +During those long hours much was stated by that small, thin voice which +was utterly beyond the comprehension of the two listeners; indeed, it is +doubtful whether even Challis understood a tithe of the theory that was +actually expressed in words. + +As for Lewes, though he was at the time non-plussed, quelled, he was in +the outcome impressed rather by the marvellous powers of memory +exhibited than by the far finer powers shown in the superhuman logic of +the synthesis. + +One sees that Lewes entered upon the interview with a mind predisposed +to criticise, to destroy. There can be no doubt that as he listened his +uninformed mind was endeavouring to analyse, to weigh, and to oppose; +and this antagonism and his own thoughts continually interposed between +him and the thought of the speaker. Lewes's account of what was spoken +on that afternoon is utterly worthless. + +Challis's failure to comprehend was not, at the outset, due to his +antagonistic attitude. He began with an earnest wish to understand: he +failed only because the thing spoken was beyond the scope of his +intellectual powers. But he did, nevertheless, understand the trend of +that analysis of progress; he did in some half-realised way apprehend +the gist of that terrible deduction of a final adjustment. + +He must have apprehended, in part, for he fiercely combated the +argument, only to quaver, at last, into a silence which permitted again +that trickle of hesitating, pedantic speech, which was yet so +overwhelming, so conclusive. + +As the afternoon wore on, however, Challis's attitude must have changed; +he must have assumed an armour of mental resistance not unlike the +resistance of Lewes. Challis perceived, however dimly, that life would +hold no further pleasure for him if he accepted that theory of origin, +evolution, and final adjustment; he found in this cosmogony no place for +his own idealism; and he feared to be convinced even by that fraction of +the whole argument which he could understand. + +We see that Challis, with all his apparent devotion to science, was +never more than a dilettante. He had another stake in the world which, +at the last analysis, he valued more highly than the acquisition of +knowledge. Those means of ease, of comfort, of liberty, of opportunity +to choose his work among various interests, were the ruling influence of +his life. With it all Challis was an idealist, and unpractical. His +genial charity, his refinement of mind, his unthinking generosity, +indicate the bias of a character which inclined always towards a +picturesque optimism. It is not difficult to understand that he dared +not allow himself to be convinced by Victor Stott's appalling +synthesis. + +At last, when the twilight was deepening into night, the voice ceased, +the child's story had been told, and it had not been understood. The +Wonder never again spoke of his theory of life. He realised from that +time that no one could comprehend him. + +As he rose to go, he asked one question that, simple as was its +expression, had a deep and wonderful significance. + +"Is there none of my kind?" he said. "Is this," and he laid a hand on +the pile of books before him, "is this all?" + +"There is none of your kind," replied Challis; and the little figure +born into a world that could not understand him, that was not ready to +receive him, walked to the window and climbed out into the darkness. + + * * * * * + +(Henry Challis is the only man who could ever have given any account of +that extraordinary analysis of life, and he made no effort to recall the +fundamental basis of the argument, and so allowed his memory of the +essential part to fade. Moreover, he had a marked disinclination to +speak of that afternoon or of anything that was said by Victor Stott +during those six momentous hours of expression. It is evident that +Challis's attitude to Victor Stott was not unlike the attitude of +Captain Wallis to Victor Stott's father on the occasion of +Hampdenshire's historic match with Surrey. "This man will have to be +barred," Wallis said. "It means the end of cricket." Challis, in effect, +thought that if Victor Stott were encouraged, it would mean the end of +research, philosophy, all the mystery, idealism, and joy of life. Once, +and once only, did Challis give me any idea of what he had learned +during that afternoon's colloquy, and the substance of what Challis then +told me will be found at the end of this volume.) + + + + +CHAPTER X + +HIS PASTORS AND MASTERS + + +I + +For many months after that long afternoon in the library, Challis was +affected with a fever of restlessness, and his work on the book stood +still. He was in Rome during May, and in June he was seized by a sudden +whim and went to China by the Trans-Siberian railway. Lewes did not +accompany him. Challis preferred, one imagines, to have no intercourse +with Lewes while the memory of certain pronouncements was still fresh. +He might have been tempted to discuss that interview, and if, as was +practically certain, Lewes attempted to pour contempt on the whole +affair, Challis might have been drawn into a defence which would have +revived many memories he wished to obliterate. + +He came back to London in September--he made the return journey by +steamer--and found his secretary still working at the monograph on the +primitive peoples of Melanesia. + +Lewes had spent the whole summer in Challis's town house in Eaton +Square, whither all the material had been removed two days after that +momentous afternoon in the library of Challis Court. + +"I have been wanting your help badly for some time, sir," Lewes said on +the evening of Challis's return. "Are you proposing to take up the work +again? If not ..." Gregory Lewes thought he was wasting valuable time. + +"Yes, yes, of course; I am ready to begin again now, if you care to go +on with me," said Challis. He talked for a few minutes of the book +without any great show of interest. Presently they came to a pause, and +Lewes suggested that he should give some account of how his time had +been spent. + +"To-morrow," replied Challis, "to-morrow will be time enough. I shall +settle down again in a few days." He hesitated a moment, and then said: +"Any news from Chilborough?" + +"N-no, I don't think so," returned Lewes. He was occupied with his own +interests; he doubted Challis's intention to continue his work on the +book--the announcement had been so half-hearted. + +"What about that child?" asked Challis. + +"That child?" Lewes appeared to have forgotten the existence of Victor +Stott. + +"That abnormal child of Stott's?" prompted Challis. + +"Oh! Of course, yes. I believe he still goes nearly every day to the +library. I have been down there two or three times, and found him +reading. He has learned the use of the index-catalogue. He can get any +book he wants. He uses the steps." + +"Do you know what he reads?" + +"No; I can't say I do." + +"What do you think will become of him?" + +"Oh! these infant prodigies, you know," said Lewes with a large air of +authority, "they all go the same way. Most of them die young, of course, +the others develop into ordinary commonplace men rather under than over +the normal ability. After all, it is what one would expect. Nature +always maintains her average by some means or another. If a child like +this with his abnormal memory were to go on developing, there would be +no place for him in the world's economy. The idea is inconceivable." + +"Quite, quite," murmured Challis, and after a short silence he added: +"You think he will deteriorate, that his faculties will decay +prematurely?" + +"I should say there could be no doubt of it," replied Lewes. + +"Ah! well. I'll go down and have a look at him, one day next week," said +Challis; but he did not go till the middle of October. + +The immediate cause of his going was a letter from Crashaw, who offered +to come up to town, as the matter was one of "really peculiar urgency." + +"I wonder if young Stott has been blaspheming again," Challis remarked +to Lewes. "Wire the man that I'll go down and see him this afternoon. I +shall motor. Say I'll be at Stoke about half-past three." + + +II + +Challis was ushered into Crashaw's study on his arrival, and found the +rector in company with another man--introduced as Mr. Forman--a +jolly-looking, high-complexioned man of sixty or so, with a great +quantity of white hair on his head and face; he was wearing an +old-fashioned morning-coat and grey trousers that were noticeably too +short for him. + +Crashaw lost no time in introducing the subject of "really peculiar +urgency," but he rambled in his introduction. + +"You have probably forgotten," he said, "that last spring I had to bring +a most horrible charge against a child called Victor Stott, who has +since been living, practically, as I may say, under your ægis, that is, +he has, at least, spent a greater part of his day, er--playing in your +library at Challis Court." + +"Quite, quite; I remember perfectly," said Challis. "I made myself +responsible for him up to a certain point. I gave him an occupation. It +was intended, was it not, to divert his mind from speaking against +religion to the yokels?" + +"Quite a character, if I may say so," put in Mr. Forman cheerfully. + +Crashaw was seated at his study table; the affair had something the +effect of an examining magistrate taking the evidence of witnesses. + +"Yes, yes," he said testily; "I did ask your help, Mr. Challis, and I +did, in a way, receive some assistance from you. That is, the child has +to some extent been isolated by spending so much of his time at your +house." + +"Has he broken out again?" asked Challis. + +"If I understand you to mean has the child been speaking openly on any +subject connected with religion, I must say 'No,'" said Crashaw. "But he +never attends any Sunday school, or place of worship; he has received no +instruction in--er--any sacred subject, though I understand he is able +to read; and his time is spent among books which, pardon me, would not, +I suppose, be likely to give a serious turn to his thoughts." + +"Serious?" questioned Challis. + +"Perhaps I should say 'religious,'" replied Crashaw. "To me the two +words are synonymous." + +Mr. Forman bowed his head slightly with an air of reverence, and nodded +two or three times to express his perfect approval of the rector's +sentiments. + +"You think the child's mind is being perverted by his intercourse with +the books in the library where he--he--'plays' was your word, I +believe?" + +"No, not altogether," replied Crashaw, drawing his eyebrows together. +"We can hardly suppose that he is able at so tender an age to read, much +less to understand, those works of philosophy and science which would +produce an evil effect on his mind. I am willing to admit, since I, too, +have had some training in scientific reading, that writers on those +subjects are not easily understood even by the mature intelligence." + +"Then why, exactly, do you wish me to prohibit the child from coming to +Challis Court?" + +"Possibly you have not realised that the child is now five years old?" +said Crashaw with an air of conferring illumination. + +"Indeed! Yes. An age of some discretion, no doubt," returned Challis. + +"An age at which the State requires that he should receive the elements +of education," continued Crashaw. + +"Eh?" said Challis. + +"Time he went to school," explained Mr. Forman. "I've been after him, +you know. I'm the attendance officer for this district." + +Challis for once committed a breach of good manners. The import of the +thing suddenly appealed to his sense of humour: he began to chuckle and +then he laughed out a great, hearty laugh, such as had not been stirred +in him for twenty years. + +"Oh! forgive me, forgive me," he said, when he had recovered his +self-control. "But you don't know; you can't conceive the utter, +childish absurdity of setting that child to recite the multiplication +table with village infants of his own age. Oh! believe me, if you could +only guess, you would laugh with me. It's so funny, so inimitably +funny." + +"I fail to see, Mr. Challis," said Crashaw, "that there is anything in +any way absurd or--or unusual in the proposition." + +"Five is the age fixed by the State," said Mr. Forman. He had relaxed +into a broad smile in sympathy with Challis's laugh, but he had now +relapsed into a fair imitation of Crashaw's intense seriousness. + +"Oh! How can I explain?" said Challis. "Let me take an instance. You +propose to teach him, among other things, the elements of arithmetic?" + +"It is a part of the curriculum," replied Mr. Forman. + +"I have only had one conversation with this child," went on Challis--and +at the mention of that conversation his brows drew together and he +became very grave again; "but in the course of that conversation this +child had occasion to refer, by way of illustration, to some abstruse +theorem of the differential calculus. He did it, you will understand, by +way of making his meaning clear--though the illustration was utterly +beyond me: that reference represented an act of intellectual +condescension." + +"God bless me, you don't say so?" said Mr. Forman. + +"I cannot see," said Crashaw, "that this instance of yours, Mr. Challis, +has any real bearing on the situation. If the child is a mathematical +genius--there have been instances in history, such as Blaise Pascal--he +would not, of course, receive elementary instruction in a subject with +which he was already acquainted." + +"You could not find any subject, believe me, Crashaw, in which he could +be instructed by any teacher in a Council school." + +"Forgive me, I don't agree with you," returned Crashaw. "He is sadly in +need of some religious training." + +"He would not get that at a Council school," said Challis, and Mr. +Forman shook his head sadly, as though he greatly deprecated the fact. + +"He must learn to recognise authority," said Crashaw. "When he has been +taught the necessity of submitting himself to all his governors, +teachers, spiritual pastors, and masters: ordering himself lowly and +reverently to all his betters; when, I say, he has learnt that lesson, +he may be in a fit and proper condition to receive the teachings of the +Holy Church." + +Mr. Forman appeared to think he was attending divine service. If the +rector had said "Let us pray," there can be no doubt that he would +immediately have fallen on his knees. + +Challis shook his head. "You can't understand, Crashaw," he said. + +"I _do_ understand," said Crashaw, rising to his feet, "and I intend to +see that the statute is not disobeyed in the case of this child, Victor +Stott." + +Challis shrugged his shoulders; Mr. Forman assumed an expression of +stern determination. + +"In any case, why drag me into it?" asked Challis. + +Crashaw sat down again. The flush which had warmed his sallow skin +subsided as his passion died out. He had worked himself into a condition +of righteous indignation, but the calm politeness of Challis rebuked +him. If Crashaw prided himself on his devotion to the Church, he did not +wish that attitude to overshadow the pride he also took in the belief +that he was Challis's social equal. Crashaw's father had been a lawyer, +with a fair practice in Derby, but he had worked his way up to a +partnership from the position of office-boy, and Percy Crashaw seldom +forgot to be conscious that he was a gentleman by education and +profession. + +"I did not wish to _drag_ you into this business," he said quietly, +putting his elbows on the writing-table in front of him, and reassuming +the judicial attitude he had adopted earlier; "but I regard this child +as, in some sense, your protégé." Crashaw put the tips of his fingers +together, and Mr. Forman watched him warily, waiting for his cue. If +this was to be a case for prayer, Mr. Forman was ready, with a clean +white handkerchief to kneel upon. + +"In some sense, perhaps," returned Challis. "I haven't seen him for some +months." + +"Cannot you see the necessity of his attending school?" asked Crashaw, +this time with an insinuating suavity; he believed that Challis was +coming round. + +"Oh!" Challis sighed with a note of expostulation. "Oh! the thing's +grotesque, ridiculous." + +"If that's so," put in Mr. Forman, who had been struck by a brilliant +idea, "why not bring the child here, and let the Reverend Mr. Crashaw, +or myself, put a few general questions to 'im?" + +"Ye-es," hesitated Crashaw, "that might be done; but, of course, the +decision does not rest with us." + +"It rests with the Local Authority," mused Challis. He was running over +three or four names of members of that body who were known to him. + +"Certainly," said Crashaw, "the Local Education Authority alone has the +right to prosecute, but----" He did not state his antithesis. They had +come to the crux which Crashaw had wished to avoid. He had no influence +with the committee of the L.E.A., and Challis's recommendation would +have much weight. Crashaw intended that Victor Stott should attend +school, but he had bungled his preliminaries; he had rested on his own +authority, and forgotten that Challis had little respect for that +influence. Conciliation was the only card to play now. + +"If I brought him, he wouldn't answer your questions," sighed Challis. +"He's very difficult to deal with." + +"Is he, indeed?" sympathised Mr. Forman. "I've 'ardly seen 'im myself; +not to speak to, that is." + +"He might come with his mother," suggested Crashaw. + +Challis shook his head. "By the way, it is the mother whom you would +proceed against?" he asked. + +"The parent is responsible," said Mr. Forman. "She will be brought +before a magistrate and fined for the first offence." + +"I shan't fine her if she comes before me," replied Challis. + +Crashaw smiled. He meant to avoid that eventuality. + +The little meeting lapsed into a brief silence. There seemed to be +nothing more to say. + +"Well," said Crashaw, at last, with a rising inflexion that had a +conciliatory, encouraging, now-my-little-man kind of air, "We-ll, of +course, no one wishes to proceed to extremes. I think, Mr. Challis, I +think I may say that you are the person who has most influence in this +matter, and I cannot believe that you will go against the established +authority both of the Church and the State. If it were only for the sake +of example." + +Challis rose deliberately. He shook his head, and unconsciously his +hands went behind his back. There was hardly room for him to pace up and +down, but he took two steps towards Mr. Forman, who immediately rose to +his feet; and then turned and went over to the window. It was from there +that he pronounced his ultimatum. + +"Regulations, laws, religious and lay authorities," he said, "come into +existence in order to deal with the rule, the average. That must be so. +But if we are a reasoning, intellectual people we must have some means +of dealing with the exception. That means rests with a consensus of +intelligent opinion strong enough to set the rule upon one side. In an +overwhelming majority of cases there _is_ no such consensus of opinion, +and the exceptional individual suffers by coming within the rule of a +law which should not apply to him. Now, I put it to you, as reasoning, +intelligent men" ('ear, 'ear, murmured Mr. Forman automatically), "are +we, now that we have the power to perform a common act of justice, to +exempt an unfortunate individual exception who has come within the rule +of a law that holds no application for him, or are we to exhibit a crass +stupidity by enforcing that law? Is it not better to take the case into +our own hands, and act according to the dictates of common sense?" + +"Very forcibly put," murmured Mr. Forman. + +"I'm not finding any fault with the law or the principle of the law," +continued Challis; "but it is, it must be, framed for the average. We +must use our discretion in dealing with the exception--and this is an +exception such as has never occurred since we have had an Education +Act." + +"I don't agree with you," said Crashaw, stubbornly. "I do not consider +this an exception." + +"But you _must_ agree with me, Crashaw. I have a certain amount of +influence and I shall use it." + +"In that case," replied Crashaw, rising to his feet, "I shall fight you +to the bitter end. I am _determined_"--he raised his voice and struck +the writing-table with his fist--"I am _determined_ that this infidel +child shall go to school. I am prepared, if necessary, to spend all my +leisure in seeing that the law is carried out." + +Mr. Forman had also risen. "Very right, very right, indeed," he said, +and he knitted his mild brows and stroked his patriarchal white beard +with an appearance of stern determination. + +"I think you would be better advised to let the matter rest," said +Challis. + +Mr. Forman looked inquiringly at the representative of the Church. + +"I shall fight," replied Crashaw, stubbornly, fiercely. + +"Ha!" said Mr. Forman. + +"Very well, as you think best," was Challis's last word. + +As Challis walked down to the gate, where his motor was waiting for him, +Mr. Forman trotted up from behind and ranged himself alongside. + +"More rain wanted yet for the roots, sir," he said. "September was a +grand month for 'arvest, but we want rain badly now." + +"Quite, quite," murmured Challis, politely. He shook hands with Mr. +Forman before he got into the car. + +Mr. Forman, standing politely bareheaded, saw that Mr. Challis's car +went in the direction of Ailesworth. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +HIS EXAMINATION + + +I + +Challis's first visit was paid to Sir Deane Elmer,[4] that man of many +activities, whose name inevitably suggests his favourite phrase of +"Organised Progress"--with all its variants. + +This is hardly the place in which to criticise a man of such diverse +abilities as Deane Elmer, a man whose name still figures so prominently +in the public press in connection with all that is most modern in +eugenics; with the Social Reform programme of the moderate party; with +the reconstruction of our penal system; with education, and so many +kindred interests; and, finally, of course, with colour photography and +process printing. This last Deane Elmer always spoke of as his hobby, +but we may doubt whether all his interests were not hobbies in the same +sense. He is the natural descendant of those earlier amateur +scientists--the adjective conveys no reproach--of the nineteenth +century, among whom we remember such striking figures as those of Lord +Avebury and Sir Francis Galton. + +In appearance Deane Elmer was a big, heavy, rather corpulent man, with a +high complexion, and his clean-shaven jowl and his succession of chins +hung in heavy folds. But any suggestion of material grossness was +contradicted by the brightness of his rather pale-blue eyes, by his +alertness of manner, and by his ready, whimsical humour. + +As chairman of the Ailesworth County Council, and its most prominent +unpaid public official--after the mayor--Sir Deane Elmer was certainly +the most important member of the Local Authority, and Challis wisely +sought him at once. He found him in the garden of his comparatively +small establishment on the Quainton side of the town. Elmer was very +much engaged in photographing flowers from nature through the ruled +screen and colour filter--in experimenting with the Elmer process, in +fact; by which the intermediate stage of a coloured negative is rendered +unnecessary. His apparatus was complicated and cumbrous. + +"Show Mr. Challis out here," he commanded the man who brought the +announcement. + +"You must forgive me, Challis," said Elmer, when Challis appeared. "We +haven't had such a still day for weeks. It's the wind upsets us in this +process. Screens create a partial vacuum." + +He was launched on a lecture upon his darling process before Challis +could get in a word. It was best to let him have his head, and Challis +took an intelligent interest. + +It was not until the photographs were taken, and his two assistants +could safely be trusted to complete the mechanical operations, that +Elmer could be divorced from his hobby. He was full of jubilation. "We +should have excellent results," he boomed--he had a tremendous +voice--"but we shan't be able to judge until we get the blocks made. We +do it all on the spot. I have a couple of platens in the shops here; but +we shan't be able to take a pull until to-morrow morning, I'm afraid. +You shall have a proof, Challis. We _should_ get magnificent results." +He looked benignantly at the vault of heaven, which had been so +obligingly free from any current of air. + +Challis was beginning to fear that even now he would be allowed no +opportunity to open the subject of his mission. But quite suddenly Elmer +dropped the shutter on his preoccupation, and with that ready +adaptability which was so characteristic of the man, forgot his hobby +for the time being, and turned his whole attention to a new subject. + +"Well?" he said, "what is the latest news in anthropology?" + +"A very remarkable phenomenon," replied Challis. "That is what I have +come to see you about." + +"I thought you were in Paraguay pigging it with the Guaranis----" + +"No, no; I don't touch the Americas," interposed Challis. "I want all +your attention, Elmer. This is important." + +"Come into my study," said Elmer, "and let us have the facts. What will +you have--tea, whisky, beer?" + +Challis's résumé of the facts need not be reported. When it was +accomplished, Elmer put several keen questions, and finally delivered +his verdict thus: + +"We must see the boy, Challis. Personally I am, of course, satisfied, +but we must not give Crashaw opportunity to raise endless questions, as +he can and will. There is Mayor Purvis, the grocer, to be reckoned with, +you must remember. He represents a powerful Nonconformist influence. +Crashaw will get hold of him--and work him if we see Purvis first. +Purvis always stiffens his neck against any breach of conventional +procedure. If Crashaw saw him first, well and good, Purvis would +immediately jump to the conclusion that Crashaw intended some subtle +attack on the Nonconformist position, and would side with us." + +"I don't think I know Purvis," mused Challis. + +"Purvis & Co. in the Square," prompted Elmer. "Black-and-white fellow; +black moustache and side whiskers, black eyes and white face. There's a +suggestion of the Methodist pulpit about him. Doesn't appear in the shop +much, and when he does, always looks as if he'd sooner sell you a Bible +than a bottle of whisky." + +"Ah, yes! I know," said Challis. "I daresay you're right, Elmer; but it +will be difficult to persuade this child to answer any questions his +examiners may put to him." + +"Surely he must be open to reason," roared Elmer. "You tell me he has an +extraordinary intelligence, and in the next sentence you imply that the +child's a fool who can't open his mouth to serve his own interests. +What's your paradox?" + +"Sublimated material. Intellectual insight and absolute spiritual +blindness," replied Challis, getting to his feet. "The child has gone +too far in one direction--in another he has made not one step. His mind +is a magnificent, terrible machine. He has the imagination of a +mathematician and a logician developed beyond all conception, he has not +one spark of the imagination of a poet. And so he cannot deal with men; +he can't understand their weaknesses and limitations; they are geese and +hens to him, creatures to be scared out of his vicinity. However, I will +see what I can do. Could you arrange for the members of the Authority to +come to my place?" + +"I should think so. Yes," said Elmer. "I say, Challis, are you sure +you're right about this child? Sounds to me like some--some freak." + +"You'll see," returned Challis. "I'll try and arrange an interview. I'll +let you know." + +"And, by the way," said Elmer, "you had better invite Crashaw to be +present. He will put Purvis's back up, and that'll enlist the difficult +grocer on our side probably." + +When Challis had gone, Elmer stood for a few minutes, thoughtfully +scratching the ample red surface of his wide, clean-shaven cheek. "I +don't know," he ejaculated at last, addressing his empty study, "I don't +know." And with that expression he put all thought of Victor Stott away +from him, and sat down to write an exhaustive article on the necessity +for a broader basis in primary education. + + +II + +Challis called at the rectory of Stoke-Underhill on the way back to his +own house. + +"I give way," was the characteristic of his attitude to Crashaw, and the +rector suppled his back again, remembered the Derby office-boy's +tendency to brag, and made the amende honorable. He even overdid his +magnanimity and came too near subservience--so lasting is the influence +of the lessons of youth. + +Crashaw did not mention that in the interval between the two interviews +he had called upon Mr. Purvis in the Square. The ex-mayor had refused to +commit himself to any course of action. + +But Challis forgot the rectory and all that it connoted before he was +well outside the rectory's front door. Challis had a task before him +that he regarded with the utmost distaste. He had warmly championed a +cause; he had been heated by the presentation of a manifest injustice +which was none the less tyrannical because it was ridiculous. And now he +realised that it was only the abstract question which had aroused his +enthusiastic advocacy, and he shrank from the interview with Victor +Stott--that small, deliberate, intimidating child. + +Henry Challis, the savant, the man of repute in letters, the respected +figure in the larger world; Challis, the proprietor and landlord; +Challis, the power among known men, knew that he would have to plead, to +humble himself, to be prepared for a rebuff--worst of all, to +acknowledge the justice of taking so undignified a position. Any +aristocrat may stoop with dignity when he condescends of his own free +will; but there are few who can submit gracefully to deserved contempt. + +Challis was one of the few. He had many admirable qualities. +Nevertheless, during that short motor ride from Stoke to his own house, +he resented the indignity he anticipated, resented it intensely--and +submitted. + + +III + +He was allowed no respite. Victor Stott was emerging from the library +window as Challis rolled up to the hall door. It was one of Ellen Mary's +days--she stood respectfully in the background while her son descended; +she curtsied to Challis as he came forward. + +He hesitated a moment. He would not risk insult in the presence of his +chauffeur and Mrs. Stott. He confronted the Wonder; he stood before him, +and over him like a cliff. + +"I must speak to you for a moment on a matter of some importance," said +Challis to the little figure below him, and as he spoke he looked over +the child's head at the child's mother. "It is a matter that concerns +your own welfare. Will you come into the house with me for a few +minutes?" + +Ellen Mary nodded, and Challis understood. He turned and led the way. At +the door, however, he stood aside and spoke again to Mrs. Stott. "Won't +you come in and have some tea, or something?" he asked. + +"No, sir, thank you, sir," replied Ellen Mary; "I'll just wait 'ere till +'e's ready." + +"At least come in and sit down," said Challis, and she came in and sat +in the hall. The Wonder had already preceded them into the house. He had +walked into the morning-room--probably because the door stood open, +though he was now tall enough to reach the handles of the Challis Court +doors. He stood in the middle of the room when Challis entered. + +"Won't you sit down?" said Challis. + +The Wonder shook his head. + +"I don't know if you are aware," began Challis, "that there is a system +of education in England at the present time, which requires that every +child should attend school at the age of five years, unless the parents +are able to provide their children with an education elsewhere." + +The Wonder nodded. + +Challis inferred that he need proffer no further information with regard +to the Education Act. + +"Now, it is very absurd," he continued, "and I have, myself, pointed out +the absurdity; but there is a man of some influence in this +neighbourhood who insists that you should attend the elementary school." +He paused, but the Wonder gave no sign. + +"I have argued with this man," continued Challis, "and I have also seen +another member of the Local Education Authority--a man of some note in +the larger world--and it seems that you cannot be exempted unless you +convince the Authority that your knowledge is such that to give you a +Council school education would be the most absurd farce." + +"Cannot you stand in loco parentis?" asked the Wonder suddenly, in his +still, thin voice. + +"You mean," said Challis, startled by this outburst, "that I am in a +sense providing you with an education? Quite true; but there is Crashaw +to deal with." + +"Inform him," said the Wonder. + +Challis sighed. "I have," he said, "but he can't understand." And then, +feeling the urgent need to explain something of the motives that govern +this little world of ours--the world into which this strangely logical +exception had been born--Challis attempted an exposition. + +"I know," he said, "that these things must seem to you utterly absurd, +but you must try to realise that you are an exception to the world about +you; that Crashaw or I, or, indeed, the greatest minds of the present +day, are not ruled by the fine logic which you are able to exercise. We +are children compared to you. We are swayed even in the making of our +laws by little primitive emotions and passions, self-interests, desires. +And at the best we are not capable of ordering our lives and our +government to those just ends which we may see, some of us, are +abstractly right and fine. We are at the mercy of that great mass of the +people who have not yet won to an intellectual and discriminating +judgment of how their own needs may best be served, and whose +representatives consider the interests of a party, a constituency, and +especially of their own personal ambitions and welfare, before the needs +of humanity as a whole, or even the humanity of these little islands. + +"Above all, we are divided man against man. We are split into parties +and factions, by greed and jealousies, petty spites and self-seeking, by +unintelligence, by education, and by our inability--a mental +inability--'to see life steadily and see it whole,' and lastly, perhaps +chiefly, by our intense egotisms, both physical and intellectual. + +"Try to realise this. It is necessary, because whatever your wisdom, you +have to live in a world of comparative ignorance, a world which cannot +appreciate you, but which can and will fall back upon the compelling +power of the savage--the resort to physical, brute force." + +The Wonder nodded. "You suggest----?" he said. + +"Merely that you should consent to answer certain elementary questions +which the members of the Local Authority will put to you," replied +Challis. "I can arrange that these questions be asked here--in the +library. Will you consent?" + +The Wonder nodded, and made his way into the hall, without another word. +His mother rose and opened the front door for him. + +As Challis watched the curious couple go down the drive, he sighed +again, perhaps with relief, perhaps at the impotence of the world of +men. + + +IV + +There were four striking figures on the Education Committee selected by +the Ailesworth County Council. + +The first of these was Sir Deane Elmer, who was also chairman of the +Council at this time. The second was the vice-chairman, Enoch Purvis, +the ex-mayor, commonly, if incorrectly, known as "Mayor" Purvis. + +The third was Richard Standing, J.P., who owned much property on the +Quainton side of the town. He was a bluff, hearty man, devoted to sport +and agriculture; a Conservative by birth and inclination, a staunch +upholder of the Church and the Tariff Reform movement. + +The fourth was the Rev. Philip Steven, a co-opted member of the +Committee, head master of the Ailesworth Grammar School. Steven was a +tall, thin man with bent shoulders, and he had a long, thin face, the +length of which was exaggerated by his square brown beard. He wore +gold-mounted spectacles which, owing to his habit of dropping his head, +always needed adjustment whenever he looked up. The movement of lifting +his head and raising his hand to his glasses had become so closely +associated, that his hand went up even when there was no apparent need +for the action. Steven spoke of himself as a Broad Churchman, and in his +speech on prize-day he never omitted some allusion to the necessity for +"marching" or "keeping step" with the times. But Elmer was inclined to +laugh at this assumption of modernity. "Steven," he said, on one +occasion, "marks time and thinks he is keeping step. And every now and +then he runs a little to catch up." The point of Elmer's satire lay in +the fact that Steven was usually to be seen either walking very slowly, +head down, lost in abstraction; or--when aroused to a sense of present +necessity--going with long-strides as if intent on catching up with the +times without further delay. Very often, too, he might be seen running +across the school playground, his hand up to those elusive glasses of +his. "There goes Mr. Steven, catching up with the times," had become an +accepted phrase. + +There were other members of the Education Committee, notably Mrs. Philip +Steven, but they were subordinate. If those four striking figures were +unanimous, no other member would have dreamed of expressing a contrary +opinion. But up to this time they had not yet been agreed upon any +important line of action. + +This four, Challis and Crashaw met in the morning-room of Challis Court +one Thursday afternoon in November. Elmer had brought a stenographer +with him for scientific purposes. + +"Well," said Challis, when they were all assembled. "The--the subject--I +mean, Victor Stott is in the library. Shall we adjourn?" Challis had not +felt so nervous since the morning before he had sat for honours in the +Cambridge Senate House. + +In the library they found a small child, reading. + + +V + +He did not look up when the procession entered, nor did he remove his +cricket cap. He was in his usual place at the centre table. + +Challis found chairs for the Committee, and the members ranged +themselves round the opposite side of the table. Curiously, the effect +produced was that of a class brought up for a viva voce examination, and +when the Wonder raised his eyes and glanced deliberately down the line +of his judges, this effect was heightened. There was an audible +fidgeting, a creak of chairs, an indication of small embarrassments. + +"Her--um!" Deane Elmer cleared his throat with noisy vigour; looked at +the Wonder, met his eyes and looked hastily away again; "Hm!--her--rum!" +he repeated, and then he turned to Challis. "So this little fellow has +never been to school?" he said. + +Challis frowned heavily. He looked exceedingly uncomfortable and +unhappy. He was conscious that he could take neither side in this +controversy--that he was in sympathy with no one of the seven other +persons who were seated in his library. + +He shook his head impatiently in answer to Sir Deane Elmer's question, +and the chairman turned to the Rev. Philip Steven, who was gazing +intently at the pattern of the carpet. + +"I think, Steven," said Elmer, "that your large experience will probably +prompt you to a more efficient examination than we could conduct. Will +you initiate the inquiry?" + +Steven raised his head slightly, put a readjusting hand up to his +glasses, and then looked sternly at the Wonder over the top of them. +Even the sixth form quailed when the head master assumed this +expression, but the small child at the table was gazing out of the +window. + +Doubtless Steven was slightly embarrassed by the detachment of the +examinee, and blundered. "What is the square root of 226?" he asked--he +probably intended to say 225. + +"15·03329--to five places," replied the Wonder. + +Steven started. Neither he nor any other member of the Committee was +capable of checking that answer without resort to pencil and paper. + +"Dear me!" ejaculated Squire Standing. + +Elmer scratched the superabundance of his purple jowl, and looked at +Challis, who thrust his hands into his pockets and stared at the +ceiling. + +Crashaw leaned forward and clasped his hands together. He was biding his +time. + +"Mayor" Purvis alone seemed unmoved. "What's that book he's got open in +front of him?" he asked. + +"May I see?" interposed Challis hurriedly, and he rose from his chair, +picked up the book in question, glanced at it for a moment, and then +handed it to the grocer. The book was Van Vloten's Dutch text and Latin +translation of Spinoza's Short Treatise. + +The grocer turned to the title-page. "Ad--beany--dick--ti--de--Spy--nozer," +he read aloud and then: "What's it all about, Mr. Challis?" he asked. +"German or something, I take it?" + +"In any case it has nothing to do with elementary arithmetic," replied +Challis curtly, "Mr. Steven will set your mind at ease on that point." + +"Certainly, certainly," murmured Steven. + +Grocer Purvis closed the book carefully and replaced it on the desk. +"What does half a stone o' loaf sugar at two-three-farthings come to?" +he asked. + +The Wonder shook his head. He did not understand the grocer's +phraseology. + +"What is seven times two and three quarters?" translated Challis. + +"19·25," answered the Wonder. + +"What's that in shillin's?" asked Purvis. + +"1·60416." + +"Wrong!" returned the grocer triumphantly. + +"Er--excuse me, Mr. Purvis," interposed Steven, "I think not. +The--the--er--examinee has given the correct mathematical answer to five +places of decimals--that is, so far as I can check him mentally." + +"Well, it seems to me," persisted the grocer, "as he's gone a long way +round to answer a simple question what any fifth-standard child could do +in his head. I'll give him another." + +"Cast it in another form," put in the chairman. "Give it as a +multiplication sum." + +Purvis tucked his fingers carefully into his waistcoat pockets. "I put +the question, Mr. Chairman," he said, "as it'll be put to the youngster +when he has to tot up a bill. That seems to be a sound and practical +form for such questions to be put in." + +Challis sighed impatiently. "I thought Mr. Steven had been delegated to +conduct the first part of the examination," he said. "It seems to me +that we are wasting a lot of time." + +Elmer nodded. "Will you go on, Mr. Steven?" he said. + +Challis was ashamed for his compeers. "What children we are," he +thought. + +Steven got to work again with various arithmetical questions, which were +answered instantly, and then he made a sudden leap and asked: "What is +the binomial theorem?" + +"A formula for writing down the coefficient of any stated term in the +expansion of any stated power of a given binomial," replied the Wonder. + +Elmer blew out his cheeks and looked at Challis, but met the gaze of Mr. +Steven, who adjusted his glasses and said, "I am satisfied under this +head." + +"It's all beyond me," remarked Squire Standing frankly. + +"I think, Mr. Chairman, that we've had enough theoretical arithmetic," +said Purvis. "There's a few practical questions I'd like to put." + +"No more arithmetic, then," assented Elmer, and Crashaw exchanged a +glance of understanding with the grocer. + +"Now, how old was our Lord when He began His ministry?" asked the +grocer. + +"Uncertain," replied the Wonder. + +Mr. Purvis smiled. "Any Sunday-school child knows that!" he said. + +"Of course, of course," murmured Crashaw. + +But Steven looked uncomfortable. "Are you sure you understand the +purport of the answer, Mr. Purvis?" he asked. + +"Can there be any doubt about it?" replied the grocer. "I asked how old +our Lord was when He began His ministry, and he"--he made an indicative +gesture with one momentarily released hand towards the Wonder--"and he +says he's 'uncertain.'" + +"No, no," interposed Challis impatiently, "he meant that the answer to +your question was uncertain." + +"How's that?" returned the grocer. "I've always understood----" + +"Quite, quite," interrupted Challis. "But what we have always understood +does not always correspond to the actual fact." + +"What did you intend by your answer?" put in Elmer quickly, addressing +the Wonder. + +"The evidence rests mainly on Luke's Gospel," answered the Wonder, "but +the phrase 'ἀρχόμενος ὡσὲι ἐτῶν τριάκοντα' is vague--it allows latitude +in either direction. According to the chronology of John's Gospel the +age might have been about thirty-two." + +"It says 'thirty' in the Bible, and that's good enough for me," said the +grocer, and Crashaw muttered "Heresy, heresy," in an audible under tone. + +"Sounds very like blarsphemy to me," said Purvis, "like doubtin' the +word of God. I'm for sending him to school." + +Deane Elmer had been regarding the face of the small abstracted child +with considerable interest. He put aside for the moment the grocer's +intimation of his voting tendency. + +"How many elements are known to chemists?" asked Elmer of the examinee. + +"Eighty-one well characterised; others have been described," replied the +Wonder. + +"Which has the greatest atomic weight?" asked Elmer. + +"Uranium." + +"And that weight is?" + +"On the oxygen basis of 16--238·5." + +"Extraordinary powers of memory," muttered Elmer, and there was silence +for a moment, a silence broken by Squire Standing, who, in a loud voice, +asked suddenly and most irrelevantly, "What's your opinion of Tariff +Reform?" + +"An empirical question that cannot be decided from a theoretical basis," +replied the Wonder. + +Elmer laughed out, a great shouting guffaw. "Quite right, quite right," +he said, his cheeks shaking with mirth. "What have you to say to that, +Standing?" + +"I say that Tariff Reform's the only way to save the country," replied +Squire Standing, looking very red and obstinate, "and if this +Government----" + +Challis rose to his feet. "Oh! aren't you all satisfied?" he said. "Is +this Committee here to argue questions of present politics? What more +evidence do you need?" + +"I'm not satisfied," put in Purvis resolutely, "nor is the Rev. Mr. +Crashaw, I fancy." + +"He has no vote," said Challis. "Elmer, what do you say?" + +"I think we may safely say that the child has been, and is being, +provided with an education elsewhere, and that he need not therefore +attend the elementary school," replied Elmer, still chuckling. + +"On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, is that what you put to the +meeting?" asked Purvis. + +"This is quite informal," replied Elmer. "Unless we are all agreed, the +question must be put to the full Committee." + +"Shall we argue the point in the other room?" suggested Challis. + +"Certainly, certainly," said Elmer. "We can return, if necessary." + +And the four striking figures of the Education Committee filed out, +followed by Crashaw and the stenographer. + +Challis, coming last, paused at the door and looked back. + +The Wonder had returned to his study of Spinoza. + +Challis waved a hand to the unconscious figure. "I must join my +fellow-children," he said grimly, "or they will be quarrelling." + + +VI + +But when he joined his fellow-children, Challis stood at the window of +the morning-room, attending little to the buzz of voices and the clatter +of glasses which marked the relief from the restraint of the +examination-room. Even the stenographer was talking; he had joined +Crashaw and Purvis--a lemonade group; the other three were drinking +whisky. The division, however, is arbitrary, and in no way significant. + +Challis caught a fragment of the conversation here and there: a +bull-roar from Elmer or Squire Standing; an occasional blatancy from +Purvis; a vibrant protest from Crashaw; a hesitating tenor pronouncement +from Steven. + +"Extraordinary powers of memory.... It isn't facts, but what they stand +for that I.... Don't know his Bible--that's good enough for me.... +Heresy, heresy.... An astounding memory, of course, quite astounding, +but----" + +The simple exposition of each man's theme was dogmatically asserted, and +through it all Challis, standing alone, hardly conscious of each +individual utterance, was still conscious that the spirits of those six +men were united in one thing, had they but known it. Each was +endeavouring to circumscribe the powers of the child they had just +left--each was insistent on some limitation he chose to regard as vital. + +They came to no decision that afternoon. The question as to whether the +Authority should prosecute or not had to be referred to the Committee. + +At the last, Crashaw entered his protest and announced once more that he +would fight the point to the bitter end. + +Crashaw's religious hatred was not, perhaps, altogether free from a +sense of affronted dignity, but it was nevertheless a force to be +counted; and he had that obstinacy of the bigot which has in the past +contributed much fire and food to the pyre of martyrdom. He had, too, a +power of initiative within certain limits. It is true that the bird on a +free wing could avoid him with contemptuous ease, but along his own path +he was a terrifying juggernaut. Crashaw, thus circumscribed, was a +power, a moving force. + +But now he was seeking to crush, not some paralysed rabbit on the road, +but an elusive spirit of swiftness which has no name, but may be figured +as the genius of modernity. The thing he sought to obliterate ran ahead +of him with a smiling facility and spat rearwards a vaporous jet of +ridicule. + +Crashaw might crush his clerical wideawake over his frowning eyebrows, +arm himself with a slightly dilapidated umbrella, and seek with long, +determined strides the members of the Local Education Authority, but far +ahead of him had run an intelligence that represented the instructed +common sense of modernity. + +It was for Crashaw to realise--as he never could and never did +realise--that he was no longer the dominant force of progress; that he +had been outstripped, left toiling and shouting vain words on a road +that had served its purpose, and though it still remained and was used +as a means of travel, was becoming year by year more antiquated and +despised. + +Crashaw toiled to the end, and no one knows how far his personal purpose +and spite were satisfied, but he could never impede any more that +elusive spirit of swiftness; it had run past him. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[4] Afterwards Lord Quainton. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +HIS INTERVIEW WITH HERR GROSSMANN + + +I + +Crashaw must have suffered greatly just at that time; and the +anticipation of his defeat by the Committee was made still more bitter +by the wonderful visit of Herr Grossmann. It is true that that visit +feebly helped Crashaw's cause at the moment by further enlisting the +sympathies and strenuous endeavour of the Nonconformist Purvis; but no +effort of the ex-mayor could avail to upset the majority of the Local +Education Authority and the grocer, himself, was not a person acceptable +to Crashaw. The two men were so nearly allied by their manner of thought +and social origin; and Crashaw instinctively flaunted the splendid +throne of his holy office, whenever he and Purvis were together. Purvis +was what the rector might have described as an ignorant man. It is a +fact that, until Crashaw very fully and inaccurately informed him, he +had never even heard of Hugo Grossmann. + +In that conversation between Crashaw and Purvis, the celebrated German +Professor figured as the veritable Anti-Christ, the Devil's personal +representative on earth; but Crashaw was not a safe authority on Science +and Philosophy. + +Herr Grossmann's world-wide reputation was certainly not won in the +field of religious controversy. He had not at that time reached the +pinnacle of achievement which placed him so high above his brilliant +contemporaries, and now presents him as the unique figure and +representative of twentieth-century science. But his very considerable +contributions to knowledge had drawn the attention of Europe for ten +years, and he was already regarded by his fellow-scientists with that +mixture of contempt and jealousy which inevitably precedes the world's +acceptance of its greatest men. + +Sir Deane Elmer, for example, was a generous and kindly man; he had +never been involved in any controversy with the professional scientists +whose ground he continually encroached upon, and yet he could not hear +the name of Grossmann without frowning. Grossmann had the German vice of +thoroughness. He took up a subject and exhausted it, as far as is +possible within the limits of our present knowledge; and his monograph +on Heredity had demonstrated with a detestable logic that much of +Elmer's treatise on Eugenics was based on evidence that must be viewed +with the gravest suspicion. Not that Grossmann had directly attacked +that treatise; he had made no kind of reference to it in his own book; +but his irrefutable statements had been quoted by every reviewer of +"Eugenics" who chanced to have come across the English translation of +"Heredity and Human Development," to the confounding of Elmer's somewhat +too optimistic prophecies concerning the possibility of breeding a race +that should approximate to a physical and intellectual perfection. + +And it happened that Elmer met Grossmann at an informal gathering of +members of the Royal Society a few days after the examination of the +Wonder in the Challis Court Library. Herr Grossmann was delivering an +impromptu lecture on the limits of variation from the normal type, when +Elmer came in and joined the group of the great Professor's listeners, +every one of whom was seeking some conclusive argument to confute their +guest's overwhelmingly accurate collation of facts. + +Elmer realised instantly that his opportunity had come at last. He +listened patiently for a few minutes to the flow of the German's +argument, and then broke in with a loud exclamation of dissent. All the +learned members of the Society turned to him at once, with a movement of +profound relief and expectation. + +"You said what?" asked Grossmann with a frown of great annoyance. + +Elmer thrust out his lower lip and looked at his antagonist with the +expression of a man seeking a vital spot for the coup de grace. + +"I said, Herr Professor," Elmer returned, "that there are exceptions +which confound your argument." + +"For example?" Grossmann said, putting his hands behind him and gently +nodding his head like a tolerant schoolmaster awaiting the inevitable +confusion of the too intrepid scholar. + +"Christian Heinecken?" suggested Elmer. + +"Ah! You have not then read my brochure on certain abnormalities +reported in history?" Grossmann said, and continued, "Mr. Aylmer, is it +not? To whom I am speaking? Yes? We have met, I believe, once in +Leipzig. I thought so. But in my brochure, Mr. Aylmer, I have examined +the Heinecken case and shown my reasons to regard it as not so departing +from the normal." + +Elmer shook his head. "Your reasons are not valid, Herr Professor," he +said and held up a corpulent forefinger to enforce Grossmann's further +attention. "They seemed convincing at the time, I admit, but this new +prodigy completely upsets your case." + +"Eh! What is that? What new prodigy?" sneered Grossmann; and two or +three savants among the little ring of listeners, although they had not +that perfect confidence in Elmer which would have put them at ease, +nodded gravely as if they were aware of the validity of his instance. + +Elmer blew out his cheeks and raised his eyebrows. "Ah! you haven't +heard of him!" he remarked with a rather fleshy surprise. "Victor Stott, +you know, son of a professional cricketer, protégé of Henry Challis, the +anthropologist. Oh! you ought to investigate that case, Herr Professor. +It is most remarkable, most remarkable." + +"Ach! What form does the abnormality take?" asked Grossmann +suspiciously, and his tone made it clear that he had little confidence +in the value of any report made to him by such an observer as Sir Deane +Elmer. + +"I can't pretend to give you anything like a full account of it," Elmer +returned. "I have only seen the child once. But, honestly, Herr +Professor, you cannot use that brochure of yours in any future argument +until you have investigated this case of young Stott. It confutes you." + +"I can see him, then?" Grossmann asked, frowning. In that company he +could not afford to decline the challenge that had been thrown down. +There were, at least, five men present who would, he believed, +immediately conduct the examination on their own account, should he +refuse the opportunity; men who would not fail to use their material for +the demolition of that pamphlet on the type of abnormality, more +particularly represented by the amazing precocity of Christian +Heinecken. + +To the layman such an attack may seem a small matter, and likely to have +little effect on such a reputation as that already won by Hugo +Grossmann; and it should be explained that in the Professor's great work +on "Heredity and Human Development," an essential argument was based on +the absence of any considerable _progressive_ variation from the normal. +Indeed it was from this premise that he developed the celebrated +"variation" theory which is, now, generally admitted to have compromised +the whole principle of "Natural Selection" while it has given a +wonderful impetus to all recent investigations and experiments on the +lines first indicated by Mendel. + +"I can see him, then?" asked Grossmann, with the faintly annoyed air of +one who is compelled by circumstances to undertake a futile task. + +"Certainly, I will arrange an interview for you," Elmer replied, and +went on to give an account of his own experience, an account that lost +nothing in the telling. + +Elmer created a mild sensation in the rooms of the Royal Society that +evening. + + +II + +He found Challis at his house in Eaton Square the next morning, but it +became evident from the outset that the plan of confounding Grossmann +did not appeal to the magnate of Stoke-Underhill. Challis frowned and +prevaricated. "It's a thousand to one, the child won't condescend to +answer," was his chief evasion. + +Elmer was not to be frustrated in the development of his scheme by any +such trivial excuse as that. He began to display a considerable +annoyance at last. + +"Oh! nonsense; nonsense, Challis," he said. "You make altogether too +much fuss about this prodigy of yours." + +"Not mine," Challis interrupted. "Take him over yourself, Elmer. Bring +him out. Exhibit him. I make you a gift of all my interest in him." + +Elmer looked thoughtful for a moment, as if he were seriously +considering that proposition, and then he said, "I recognise that there +are--difficulties. The child seems--er--to have a queer, morose temper, +doesn't he?" + +Challis shook his head. "It isn't that," he said. + +Elmer scratched his cheek. "I understand," he began, and then broke off +and went on, "I'm putting this as a personal favour, Challis; but it is +more than that. You know my theories with regard to the future of the +race. I have a steady faith in our enormous potentialities for real +progress. But it must be organised, and Grossmann is just now standing +in our way. That stubborn materialism of his has infected many fine +intelligences; and I would make very great sacrifices in order to clear +this great and terrible obstacle out of the way." + +"And you believe that this interview ..." interrupted Challis. + +"I do, indeed," Elmer said. "It will destroy one of Grossmann's most +vital premisses. This prodigy of yours--he is unquestionably a +prodigy--demonstrates the fact of an immense progressive variation. Once +that is conceded, the main argument of Grossmann's 'Heredity' is +invalidated. We shall have knocked away the keystone of his mechanistic +theory of evolution...." + +"But suppose that the boy refuses...." + +"He did not refuse to see us." + +"That was to save himself from further trouble." + +"But isn't he susceptible to argument?" + +"Not the kind of argument you have been using to me," Challis said +gravely. + +Elmer blew like a porpoise; looked very thoughtful for a moment, and +then said: + +"You could represent Grossmann as the final court of appeal--the High +Lord Muck-a-muck of the L.E.A." + +"I should have to do something of the sort," Challis admitted, and +continued with a spurt of temper. "But understand, Elmer, I don't do it +again; no, not to save the reputation of the Royal Society." + + +III + +Unhappily, no record exists of the conversation between the Wonder and +Herr Grossmann. + +The Professor seems at the last moment to have had some misgiving as to +the nature of the interview that was before him, and refused to have a +witness to the proceedings. + +Challis made the introduction, and he says that the Wonder regarded +Grossmann with perhaps rather more attention than he commonly conceded +to strangers; and that the Professor exhibited the usual signs of +embarrassment. + +Altogether, Grossmann was in the library for about half an hour, and he +displayed no sign of perturbation when he rejoined Challis and Elmer in +the breakfast-room. Indeed, only one fact of any significance emerges to +throw suspicion on Grossmann's attitude during the progress of that +secluded half-hour with the greatest intellect of all time--the +Professor's spectacles had been broken. + +He spoke of the accident with a casual air when he was in the +breakfast-room, but Challis remarked a slight flush on the great +scientist's face as he referred, perhaps a trifle too ostentatiously, to +the incident. And although it is worthless as evidence, there is +something rather suspicious in Challis's discovery of finely powdered +glass in his library--a mere pinch on the parquet near the further +window of the big room, several feet away from the table at which the +Wonder habitually sat. Challis would never have noticed the glass, had +not one larger atom that had escaped pulverisation, caught the light +from the window and drawn his attention. + +But even this find is in no way conclusive. The Professor may quite well +have walked over to the window, taken off his spectacles to wipe them +and dropped them as he, himself, explained. While the crushing of some +fragment of one of the lenses was probably due to the chance of his +stepping upon it, as he turned on his heel to continue the momentarily +interrupted conversation. It is hard to believe that so great a man as +Grossmann could have been convulsed by a petty rage that found +expression in some act of wanton destruction. + +His own brief account of the interview accords very well with the single +reference to the Wonder which exists in the literature of the world. +This reference is a footnote to a second edition of Grossmann's +brochure entitled "An Explanation of Certain Intellectual Abnormalities +reported in History" ("Eine Erklärung gewisser Intellektueller +geschichtlich überlieferter Anormalen Erscheinungen"). This footnote +comes at the end of Grossmann's masterly analysis of the Heinecken case +and reads: "I recently examined a similar case of abnormality in +England, but found that it presented no such marked divergence from the +type as would demand serious investigation." + +And in his brief account of the interview rendered to Challis and Elmer, +Herr Grossmann, in effect, did no more than draft that footnote. + + +IV + +It must remain uncertain, now, whether or not Elmer would have persisted +in his endeavour to exploit the Wonder to the confounding of Grossmann, +despite Challis's explicit statement that he would do no more, not even +if it were to save the reputation of the Royal Society. Elmer certainly +had the virtue of persistence and might have made the attempt. But in +one of his rare moments of articulate speech, the Wonder decided the +fate of that threatened controversy beyond the possibility of appeal. + +He spoke to Challis that same afternoon. He put up his tiny hand to +command attention and made the one clear statement on record of his own +interests and ambitions in the world. + +Challis, turning from his discovery of the Professor's crushed glasses, +listened in silence. + +"This Grossmann," the Wonder said, "was not concerned in my exemption?" + +Challis shook his head. "He is the last," the Wonder concluded with a +fine brevity. "You and your kind have no interest in truth." + +That last statement may have had a double intention. It is obvious from +the Wonder's preliminary question,--which had, indeed, also the quality +of an assertion,--how plainly he had recognised that Grossmann had been +introduced under false pretences. But, it is permissible to infer that +the pronouncement went deeper than that. The Wonder's logic penetrated +far into the mysteries of life and he may have seen that Grossmann's +attitude was warped by the human limitations of his ambition to shine as +a great exponent of science; that he dared not follow up a line of +research which might end in the invalidation of his great theory of +heredity. + +Victor Stott had once before expounded his philosophy and Challis, on +that occasion, had deliberately refused to listen. And we may guess that +Grossmann, also, might have received some great illumination, had he +chosen to pay deference to a mind so infinitely greater than his own. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +FUGITIVE + + +Meanwhile a child of five--all unconscious that his quiet refusal to +participate in the making and breaking of reputations was temporarily a +matter of considerable annoyance to a Fellow of the Royal Society--ran +through a well-kept index of the books in the library of Challis +Court--an index written clearly on cards that occupied a great nest of +accessible drawers; two cards with a full description to each book, +alphabetically arranged, one card under the title of the work and one +under the author's name. + +The child made no notes as he studied--he never wrote a single line in +all his life; but when a drawer of that delightful index had been +searched, he would walk here and there among the three rooms at his +disposal, and by the aid of the flight of framed steps that ran smoothly +on rubber-tyred wheels, he would take down now and again some book or +another until, returning to the table at last to read, he sat in an +enceinte of piled volumes that had been collected round him. + +Sometimes he read a book from beginning to end, more often he glanced +through it, turning a dozen pages at a time, and then pushed it on one +side with a gesture displaying the contempt that was not shown by any +change of expression. + +On many afternoons the sombrely clad figure of a tall, gaunt woman would +stand at the open casement of a window in the larger room, and keep a +mystic vigil that sometimes lasted for hours. She kept her gaze fixed on +that strange little figure whenever it roved up and down the suite of +rooms or clambered the pyramid of brown steps that might have made such +a glorious plaything for any other child. And even when her son was +hidden behind the wall of volumes he had built, the woman would still +stare in his direction, but then her eyes seemed to look inwards; at +such times she appeared to be wrapped in an introspective devotion. + +Very rarely, the heavy-shouldered figure of a man would come to the +doorway of the larger room, and also keep a silent vigil--a man who +would stand for some minutes with thoughtful eyes and bent brows and +then sigh, shake his head and move away, gently closing the door behind +him. + +There were few other interruptions to the silence of that chapel-like +library. Half a dozen times in the first few months a fair-haired, +rather supercilious young man came and fetched away a few volumes; but +even he evidenced an inclination to walk on tiptoe, a tendency that +mastered him whenever he forgot for a moment his self-imposed rôle of +scorn.... + +Outside, over the swelling undulations of rich grass the sheep came back +with close-cropped, ungainly bodies to a land that was yellow with +buttercups. But when one looked again, their wool hung about them, and +they were snatching at short turf that was covered at the woodside by a +sprinkle of brown leaves. Then the sheep have gone, and the wood is +black with February rain. And, again, the unfolding of the year is about +us; a thickening of high twigs in the wood, a glint of green on the +blackthorn.... + +Nearly three cycles of death and birth have run their course, and then +the strange little figure comes no more to the library at Challis +Court. + + + + +PART THREE + +MY ASSOCIATION WITH THE WONDER + + + + +PART THREE + +MY ASSOCIATION WITH THE WONDER + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +HOW I WENT TO PYM TO WRITE A BOOK + + +I + +The circumstance that had intrigued me for so long was determined with +an abruptness only less remarkable than the surprise of the onset. Two +deaths within six months brought to me, the first, a competence, the +second, release from gall and bitterness. For the first time in my life +I was a free man. At forty one can still look forward, and I put the +past behind me and made plans for the future. There was that book of +mine still waiting to be written. + +It was wonderful how the detail of it all came back to me--the plan of +it, the thread of development, even the very phrases that I had toyed +with. The thought of the book brought back a train of associations. +There was a phrase I had coined as I had walked out from Ailesworth to +Stoke-Underhill; a chapter I had roughed out the day I went to see +Ginger Stott at Pym. It seemed to me that the whole conception of the +book was associated in some way with that neighbourhood. I remembered at +last that I had first thought of writing it after my return from +America, on the day that I had had that curious experience with the +child in the train. It occurred to me that by a reversal of the process, +I might regain many more of my original thoughts; that by going to live, +temporarily perhaps, in the neighbourhood of Ailesworth, I might revive +other associations. + +The picture of Pym presented itself to me very clearly. I remembered +that I had once thought that Pym was a place to which I might retire one +day in order to write the things I wished to write. I decided to make +the dream a reality, and I wrote to Mrs. Berridge at the Wood Farm, +asking her if she could let me have her rooms for the spring, summer, +and autumn. + + +II + +I was all aglow with excitement on the morning that I set out for the +Hampden Hills. This was change, I thought, freedom, adventure. This was +the beginning of life, my real entry into the joy of living. + +The world was alight with the fire of growth. May had come with a clear +sky and a torrent of green was flowing over field, hedge, and wood. I +remember that I thanked "whatever gods there be," that one could live so +richly in the enjoyment of these things. + + +III + +Farmer Bates met me at Great Hittenden Station. His was the only +available horse and cart at Pym, for the Berridges were in a very small +way, and it is doubtful if they could have made both ends meet if Mrs. +Berridge had not done so well by letting her two spare rooms. + +I have a great admiration for Farmer Bates and Mrs. Berridge. I regret +intensely that they should both have been unhappily married. If they had +married each other they would undoubtedly have made a success of life. + +Bates was a Cockney by birth, but always he had had an ambition to take +a farm, and after twenty years of work as a skilled mechanic he had +thrown up a well-paid job, and dared the uncertainties which beset the +English farmer. That venture was a constant bone of strife between him +and his wife. Mrs. Bates preferred the town. It has always seemed to me +that there was something fine about Bates and his love for the land. + +"Good growing weather, Mr. Bates," I said, as I climbed up into the +cart. + +"Shouldn't be sorry to see some more rain," replied Bates, and damped my +ardour for a moment. + +Just before we turned into the lane that leads up the long hill to Pym, +we passed a ramshackle cart, piled up with a curious miscellany of +ruinous furniture. A man was driving, and beside him sat a slatternly +woman and a repulsive-looking boy of ten or twelve years old, with a +great swollen head and an open, slobbering mouth. + +I was startled. I jumped to the conclusion that this was the child I had +seen in the train, the son of Ginger Stott. + +As we slowed down to the ascent of the long hill, I said to Bates: "Is +that Stott's boy?" + +Bates looked at me curiously. "Why, no," he said. "Them's the 'Arrisons. +'Arrison's dead now; he was a wrong 'un, couldn't make a job of it, +nohow. They used to live 'ere, five or six year ago, and now 'er +'usband's dead, Mrs. 'Arrison's coming back with the boy to live. Worse +luck. We thought we was shut of 'em." + +"Oh!" I said. "The boy's an idiot, I suppose." + +"'Orrible," replied Bates, shaking his head, "'orrible; can't speak nor +nothing; goes about bleating and baa-ing like an old sheep." + +I looked round, but the ramshackle cart was hidden by the turn of the +road. "Does Stott still live at Pym?" I asked. + +"Not Ginger," replied Bates. "He lives at Ailesworth. Mrs. Stott and 'er +son lives here." + +"The boy's still alive then?" I asked. + +"Yes," said Bates. + +"Intelligent child?" I asked. + +"They say," replied Bates. "Book-learnin' and such. They say 'e's read +every book in Mr. Challis's librairy." + +"Does he go to school?" + +"No. They let 'im off. Leastways Mr. Challis did. They say the Reverend +Crashaw, down at Stoke, was fair put out about it." + +I thought that Bates emphasised the "on dit" nature of his information +rather markedly. "What do _you_ think of him?" I asked. + +"Me?" said Bates. "I don't worry my 'ead about him. I've got too much to +_do_." And he went off into technicalities concerning the abundance of +charlock on the arable land of Pym. He called it "garlic." I saw that it +was typical of Bates that he should have too much to _do_. I reflected +that his was the calling which begot civilisation. + + +IV + +The best and surest route from Pym to the Wood Farm is, appropriately, +by way of the wood; but in wet weather the alternative of various cart +tracks that wind among the bracken and shrub of the Common, is +preferable in many ways. May had been very dry that year, however, and +Farmer Bates chose the wood. The leaves were still light on the beeches. +I remember that as I tried to pierce the vista of stems that dipped over +the steep fall of the hill, I promised myself many a romantic +exploration of the unknown mysteries beyond. + +Everything was so bright that afternoon that nothing, I believe, could +have depressed me. When I had reached the farm and looked round the low, +dark room with its one window, a foot from the ground and two from the +ceiling, I only thought that I should be out-of-doors all the time. It +amused me that I could touch the ceiling with my head by standing on +tiptoe, and I laughed at the framed "presentation plates" from old +Christmas numbers on the walls. These things are merely curious when the +sun is shining and it is high May, and one is free to do the desired +work after twenty years in a galley. + + +V + +At a quarter to eight that evening I saw the sun set behind the hills. +As I wandered reflectively down the lane that goes towards Challis +Court, a blackbird was singing ecstatically in a high elm; here and +there a rabbit popped out and sat up, the picture of precocious +curiosity. Nature seemed to be standing in her doorway for a careless +half-hour's gossip, before putting up the shutters to bar the robbers +who would soon be about their work of the night. + +It was still quite light as I strolled back over the Common, and I chose +a path that took me through a little spinney of ash, oak, and beech, +treading carefully to avoid crushing the tender crosiers of bracken that +were just beginning to break their way through the soil. + +As I emerged from the little clump of wood, I saw two figures going away +from me in the direction of Pym. + +One was that of a boy wearing a cricket-cap; he was walking +deliberately, his hands hanging at his sides; the other figure was a +taller boy, and he threw out his legs in a curious, undisciplined way, +as though he had little control over them. At first sight I thought he +was not sober. + +The two passed out of sight behind a clump of hawthorn, but once I saw +the smaller figure turn and face the other, and once he made a repelling +gesture with his hands. + +It occurred to me that the smaller boy was trying to avoid his +companion; that he was, in one sense, running away from him, that he +walked as one might walk away from some threatening animal, +deliberately--to simulate the appearance of courage. + +I fancied the bigger boy was the idiot Harrison I had seen that +afternoon, and Farmer Bates's "We hoped we were shut of him" recurred to +me. I wondered if the idiot were dangerous or only a nuisance. + +I took the smaller boy to be one of the villagers' children. I noticed +that his cricket-cap had a dark patch as though it had been mended with +some other material. + +The impression which I received from this trivial affair was one of +disappointment. The wood and the Common had been so deserted by +humanity, so given up to nature, that I felt the presence of the idiot +to be a most distasteful intrusion. "If that horrible thing is going to +haunt the Common there will be no peace or decency," was the idea that +presented itself. "I must send him off, the brute," was the corollary. +But I disliked the thought of being obliged to drive him away. + + +VI + +The next morning I did not go on the Common; I was anxious to avoid a +meeting with the Harrison idiot. I had been debating whether I should +drive him away if I met him. Obviously I had no more right on the Common +than he had--on the other hand, he was a nuisance, and I did not see why +I should allow him to spoil all my pleasure in that ideal stretch of +wild land which pressed on three sides of the Wood Farm. It was a stupid +quandary of my own making; but I am afraid it was rather typical of my +mental attitude. I am prone to set myself tasks, such as this eviction +of the idiot from common ground, and equally prone to avoid them by a +process of procrastination. + +By way of evasion I walked over to Deane Hill and surveyed the wonderful +panorama of neat country that fills the basin between the Hampden and +the Quainton Hills. Seen from that height, it has something the effect +of a Dutch landscape, it all looks so amazingly tidy. Away to the left I +looked over Stoke-Underhill. Ailesworth was a blur in the hollow, but I +could distinguish the high fence of the County Ground. + +I sat all the morning on Deane Hill, musing and smoking, thinking of +such things as Ginger Stott, and the match with Surrey. I decided that I +must certainly go and see Stott's queer son, the phenomenon who had, +they say, read all the books in Mr. Challis's library. I wondered what +sort of a library this Challis had, and who he was. I had never heard of +him before. I think I must have gone to sleep for a time. + +When Mrs. Berridge came to clear away my dinner--I dined, without shame, +at half-past twelve--I detained her with conversation. Presently I asked +about little Stott. + +"He's a queer one, that's what he is," said Mrs. Berridge. She was a +neat, comely little woman, rather superior to her station, and it seemed +to me, certainly superior to her clod of a husband. + +"A great reader, Farmer Bates tells me," I said. + +Mrs. Berridge passed that by. "His mother's in trouble about him this +morning," she said. "She's such a nice, respectable woman, and has all +her milk and eggs and butter off of us. She was here this morning while +you were out, sir, and, what I could make of it that 'Arrison boy had +been chasing her boy on the Common last night." + +"Oh!" I said with sudden enlightenment. "I believe I saw them." At the +back of my mind I was struggling desperately with a vague remembrance. +It may sound incredible, but I had only the dimmest memory of my later +experience of the child. The train incident was still fresh in my mind, +but I could not remember what Stott had told me when I talked with him +by the pond. I seemed to have an impression that the child had some +strange power of keeping people at a distance; or was I mixing up +reality with some Scandinavian fairy tale? + +"Very likely, sir," Mrs. Berridge went on. "What upset Mrs. Stott was +that her boy's never upset by anything--he has a curious way of looking +at you, sir, that makes you wish you wasn't there; but from what Mrs. +Stott says, this 'Arrison boy wasn't to be drove off, anyhow, and her +son came in quite flurried like. Mrs. Stott seemed quite put out about +it." + +Doubtless I might have had more information from my landlady, but I was +struggling to reconstruct that old experience which had slipped away +from me, and I nodded and turned back to the book I had been pretending +to read. Mrs. Berridge was one of those unusual women--for her station +in life--who know when to be silent, and she finished her clearing away +without initiating any further remarks. + +When she had finished I went out onto the Common and looked for the pond +where I had talked with Ginger Stott. + +I found it after a time, and then I began to gather up the threads I had +dropped. + +It all came back to me, little by little. I remembered that talk I had +had with him, his very gestures; I remembered how he had spoken of +habits, or the necessity for the lack of them, and that took me back to +the scene in the British Museum Reading Room, and to my theory. I was +suddenly alive to that old interest again. + +I got up and walked eagerly in the direction of Mrs. Stott's cottage. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE INCIPIENCE OF MY SUBJECTION TO THE WONDER + + +I + +Victor Stott was in his eighth year when I met him for the third time. I +must have stayed longer than I imagined by the pond on the Common, for +Mrs. Stott and her son had had tea, and the boy was preparing to go out. +He stopped when he saw me coming; an unprecedented mark of recognition, +so I have since learned. + +As I saw him then, he made a remarkable, but not a repulsively abnormal +figure. His baldness struck one immediately, but it did not give him a +look of age. Then one noticed that his head was unmistakably out of +proportion to his body, yet the disproportion was not nearly so marked +as it had been in infancy. These two things were conspicuous; the less +salient peculiarities were observed later; the curious little beaky nose +that jutted out at an unusual angle from the face, the lips that were +too straight and determined for a child, the laxity of the limbs when +the body was in repose--lastly, the eyes. + +When I met Victor Stott on this, third, occasion, there can be no doubt +that he had lost something of his original power. This may have been due +to his long sojourn in the world of books, a sojourn that had, perhaps, +altered the strange individuality of his thought; or it may have been +due, in part at least, to his recent recognition of the fact that the +power of his gaze exercised no influence over creatures such as the +Harrison idiot. Nevertheless, though something of the original force had +abated, he still had an extraordinary, and, so far as I can learn, +altogether unprecedented power of enforcing his will without word or +gesture; and I may say here that in those rare moments when Victor Stott +looked me in the face, I seemed to see a rare and wonderful personality +peering out through his eyes,--the personality which had, no doubt, +spoken to Challis and Lewes through that long afternoon in the library +of Challis Court. Normally one saw a curious, unattractive, rather +repulsive figure of a child; when he looked at one with that rare look +of intention, the man that lived within that unattractive body was +revealed, his insight, his profundity, his unexampled wisdom. If we mark +the difference between man and animals by a measure of intelligence, +then surely this child was a very god among men. + + +II + +Victor Stott did not look at me when I entered his mother's cottage; I +saw only the unattractive exterior of him, and I blundered into an air +of patronage. + +"Is this your boy?" I said, when I had greeted her. "I hear he is a +great scholar." + +"Yes, sir," replied Ellen Mary quietly. She never boasted to strangers. + +"You don't remember me, I suppose?" I went on, foolishly; trying, +however, to speak as to an equal. "You were in petticoats the last time +I saw you." + +The Wonder was standing by the window, his arms hanging loosely at his +sides; he looked out aslant up the lane; his profile was turned towards +me. He made no answer to my question. + +"Oh yes, sir, he remembers," replied Ellen Mary. "He never forgets +anything." + +I paused, uncomfortably. I was slightly huffed by the boy's silence. + +"I have come to spend the summer here," I said at last. "I hope he will +come to see me. I have brought a good many books with me; perhaps he +might care to read some of them." + +I had to talk _at_ the boy; there was no alternative. Inwardly I was +thinking that I had Kant's Critique and Hegel's Phenomenology among my +books. "He may put on airs of scholarship," I thought; "but I fancy that +he will find those two works rather above the level of his comprehension +as yet." I did not recognise the fact that it was I who was putting on +airs, not Victor Stott. + +"'E's given up reading the past six weeks, sir," said Ellen Mary, "but I +daresay he will come and see your books." + +She spoke demurely, and she did not look at her son; I received the +impression that her statements were laid before him to take up, reject, +or pass unnoticed as he pleased. + +I was slightly exasperated. I turned to the Wonder. "Would you care to +come?" I asked. + +He nodded without looking at me, and walked out of the cottage. + +I hesitated. + +"'E'll go with you now, sir," prompted Ellen Mary. "That's what 'e +means." + +I followed the Wonder in a condition of suppressed irritation. "His +mother might be able to interpret his rudeness," I thought, "but I would +teach him to convey his intentions more clearly. The child had been +spoilt." + + +III + +The Wonder chose the road over the Common. I should have gone by the +wood, but when we came to the entrance of the wood, he turned up on to +the Common. He did not ask me which way I preferred. Indeed, we neither +of us spoke during the half-mile walk that separated the Wood Farm from +the last cottage in Pym. + +I was fuming inwardly. I had it in my mind at that time to put the +Wonder through some sort of an examination. I was making plans to +contribute towards his education, to send him to Oxford, later. I had +adumbrated a scheme to arouse interest in his case among certain +scholars and men of influence with whom I was slightly acquainted. I had +been very much engrossed with these plans as I had made my way to the +Stotts' cottage. I was still somewhat exalted in mind with my dreams of +a vicarious brilliance. I had pictured the Wonder's magnificent passage +through the University; I had acted, in thought, as the generous and +kindly benefactor.... It had been a grandiose dream, and the reality was +so humiliating. Could I make this mannerless child understand his +possibilities? Had he any ambition? + +Thinking of these things, I had lagged behind as we crossed the Common, +and when I came to the gate of the farmyard, the Wonder was at the door +of the house. He did not wait for me, but walked straight into my +sitting-room. When I entered, I found him seated on the low window-sill, +turning over the top layer of books in the large case which had been +opened, but not unpacked. There was no place to put the books; in fact, +I was proposing to have some shelves put up, if Mrs. Berridge had no +objection. + +I entered the room in a condition of warm indignation. "Cheek" was the +word that was in my mind. "Confounded cheek," I muttered. Nevertheless I +did not interrupt the boy; instead, I lit a cigarette, sat down and +watched him. + +I was sceptical at first. I noted at once the sure touch with which the +boy handled my books, the practised hand that turned the pages, the +quick examination of title-page and the list of contents, the occasional +swift reference to the index, but I did not believe it possible that any +one could read so fast as he read when he did condescend for a few +moments to give his attention to a few consecutive pages. "Was it a +pose?" I thought, yet he was certainly an adept in handling the books. I +was puzzled, yet I was still sceptical--the habit of experience was +towards disbelief--a boy of seven and a half could not possibly have the +mental equipment to skim all that philosophy.... + +My books were being unpacked very quickly. Kant, Hegel, Schelling, +Fichte, Leibnitz, Nietzsche, Hume, Bradley, William James had all been +rejected and were piled on the floor, but he had hesitated longer over +Bergson's _Creative Evolution_. He really seemed to be giving that some +attention, though he read it--if he were reading it--so fast that the +hand which turned the pages hardly rested between each movement. + +When Bergson was sent to join his predecessors, I determined that I +would get some word out of this strange child--I had never yet heard him +speak, not a single syllable. I determined to brave all rebuffs. I was +prepared for that. + +"Well?" I said, when Bergson was laid down. "Well! What do you make of +that?" + +He turned and looked out of the window. + +I came and sat on the end of the table within a few feet of him. From +that position I, too, could see out of the window, and I saw the figure +of the Harrison idiot slouching over the farmyard gate. + +A gust of impatience whirled over me. I caught up my stick and went out +quickly. + +"Now then," I said, as I came within speaking distance of the idiot, +"get away from here. Out with you!" + +The idiot probably understood no word of what I said, but like a dog he +was quick to interpret my tone and gesture. He made a revoltingly +inhuman sound as he shambled away, a kind of throaty yelp. I walked back +to the house. I could not avoid the feeling that I had been +unnecessarily brutal. + +When I returned the Wonder was still staring out of the window; but +though I did not guess it then, the idiot had served my purpose better +than my determination. It was to the idiot that I owed my subsequent +knowledge of Victor Stott. The Wonder had found a use for me. He was +resigned to bear with my feeble mental development, because I was strong +enough to keep at bay that half-animal creature who appeared to believe +that Victor Stott was one of his own kind--the only one he had ever met. +The idiot in some unimaginable way had inferred a likeness between +himself and the Wonder--they both had enormous heads--and the idiot was +the only human being over whom the Wonder was never able to exercise the +least authority. + + +IV + +I went in and sat down again on the end of the table. I was rather +heated. I lit another cigarette and stared at the Wonder, who was still +looking out of the window. + +There was silence for a few seconds, and then he spoke of his own +initiative. + +"Illustrates the weakness of argument from history and analogy," he said +in a clear, small voice, addressing no one in particular. "Hegel's +limitations are qualitatively those of Harrison, who argues that I and +he are similar in kind." + +The proposition was so astounding that I could find no answer +immediately. If the statement had been made in boyish language I should +have laughed at it, but the phraseology impressed me. + +"You've read Hegel, then?" I asked evasively. + +"Subtract the endeavour to demonstrate a preconceived hypothesis from +any known philosophy," continued the Wonder, without heeding my +question, "and the remainder, the only valuable material, is found to be +distorted." He paused as if waiting for my reply. + +How could one answer such propositions as these offhand? I tried, +however, to get at the gist of the sentence, and, as the silence +continued, I said with some hesitation: "But it is impossible, surely, +to approach the work of writing, say a philosophy, without some +apprehension of the end in view?" + +"Illogical," replied the Wonder, "not philosophy; a system of trial and +error--to evaluate a complex variable function." He paused a moment, and +then glanced down at the pile of books on the floor. "More millions," he +said. + +I think he meant that more millions of books might be written on this +system without arriving at an answer to the problem, but I admit that I +am at a loss, that I cannot interpret his remarks. I wrote them down an +hour or two after they were uttered, but I may have made mistakes. The +mathematical metaphor is beyond me. I have no acquaintance with the +higher mathematics. + +The Wonder had a very expressionless face, but I thought at this moment +that he wore a look of sadness; and that look was one of the factors +which helped me to understand the unbridgeable gulf that lay between his +intellect and mine. I think it was at this moment that I first began to +change my opinion. I had been regarding him as an unbearable little +prig, but it flashed across me as I watched him now, that his mind and +my own might be so far differentiated that he was unable to convey his +thoughts to me. "Was it possible," I wondered, "that he had been trying +to talk down to my level?" + +"I am afraid I don't quite follow you," I said. I had intended to +question him further, to urge him to explain, but it came to me that it +would be quite hopeless to go on. How can one answer the unreasoning +questions of a child? Here I was the child, though a child of slightly +advanced development. I could appreciate that it was useless to persist +in a futile "Why, why?" when the answer could only be given in terms +that I could not comprehend. Therefore I hesitated, sighed, and then +with that obstinacy of vanity which creates an image of self-protection +and refuses to relinquish it, I said: + +"I wish you could explain yourself; not on this particular point of +philosophy, but your life----" I stopped, because I did not know how to +phrase my demand. What was it, after all, that I wanted to learn? + +"That I can't explain," said the Wonder. "There are no data." + +I saw that he had accepted my request for explanation in a much wider +sense than I had intended, and I took him up on this. + +"But haven't you any hypothesis?" + +"I cannot work on the system of trial and error," replied the Wonder. + +Our conversation went no further this afternoon, for Mrs. Berridge came +in to lay the cloth. She looked askance, I thought, at the figure on the +window-sill, but she ventured no remark save to ask if I was ready for +my supper. + +"Yes, oh! yes!" I said. + +"Shall I lay for two, sir?" asked Mrs. Berridge. + +"Will you stay and have supper?" I said to the Wonder, but he shook his +head, got up and walked out of the room. I watched him cross the +farmyard and make his way over the Common. + +"Well!" I said to Mrs. Berridge, when the boy was out of sight, "that +child is what in America they call 'the limit,' Mrs. Berridge." + +My landlady put her lips together, shook her head, and shivered +slightly. "He gives me the shudders," she said. + + +V + +I neither read nor wrote that evening. I forgot to go out for a walk at +sunset. I sat and pondered until it was time for bed, and then I +pondered myself to sleep. No vision came to me, and I had no relevant +dreams. + +The next morning at seven o'clock I saw Mrs. Stott come over the Common +to fetch her milk from the farm. I waited until her business was done, +and then I went out and walked back with her. + +"I want to understand about your son," I said by way of making an +opening. + +She looked at me quickly. "You know, 'e 'ardly ever speaks to me, sir," +she said. + +I was staggered for a moment. "But you understand him?" I said. + +"In some ways, sir," was her answer. + +I recognised the direction of the limitation. "Ah! we none of us +understand him in all ways," I said, with a touch of patronage. + +"No, sir," replied Ellen Mary. She evidently agreed to that statement +without qualification. + +"But what is he going to do?" I asked. "When he grows up, I mean?" + +"I can't say, sir. We must leave that to 'im." + +I accepted the rebuke more mildly than I should have done on the +previous day. "He never speaks of his future?" I said feebly. + +"No, sir." + +There seemed to be nothing more to say. We had only gone a couple of +hundred yards, but I paused in my walk. I thought I might as well go +back and get my breakfast. But Mrs. Stott looked at me as though she had +something more to say. We stood facing each other on the cart track. + +"I suppose I can't be of any use?" I asked vaguely. + +Ellen Mary became suddenly voluble. + +"I 'ope I'm not askin' too much, sir," she said, "but there is a way you +could 'elp if you would. 'E 'ardly ever speaks to me, as I've said, but +I've been opset about that 'Arrison boy. 'E's a brute beast, sir, if you +know what I mean, and _'e_" (she differentiated her pronouns only by +accent, and where there is any doubt I have used italics to indicate +that her son is referred to) "doesn't seem to 'ave the same 'old on 'im +as _'e_ does over others. It's truth, I am not easy in my mind about it, +sir, although _'e_ 'as never said a word to me, not being afraid of +anything like other children, but 'e seems to have took a sort of a +fancy to you, sir" (I think this was intended as the subtlest flattery), +"and if you was to go with 'im when 'e takes 'is walks--'e's much in the +air, sir, and a great one for walkin'--I think 'e'd be glad of your +cump'ny, though maybe 'e won't never say it in so many words. You +mustn't mind 'im being silent, sir; there's some things we can't +understand, and though, as I say, 'e 'asn't said anything to me, it's +not that I'm scheming be'ind 'is back, for I know 'is meaning without +words being necessary." + +She might have said more, but I interrupted her at this point. +"Certainly, I will come and fetch him,"--I lapsed unconsciously into her +system of denomination--"this morning, if you are sure he would like to +come out with me." + +"I'm quite sure, sir," she said. + +"About nine o'clock?" I asked. + +"That would do nicely, sir," she answered. + +As I walked back to the farm I was thinking of the life of those two +occupants of the Stotts' cottage. The mother who watched her son in +silence, studying his every look and action in order to gather his +meaning; who never asked her son a question nor expected from him any +statement of opinion; and the son wrapped always in that profound +speculation which seemed to be his only mood. What a household! + +It struck me while I was having breakfast that I seemed to have let +myself in for a duty that might prove anything but pleasant. + + +VI + +There is nothing to say of that first walk of mine with the Wonder. I +spoke to him once or twice and he answered by nodding his head; even +this notice I now know to have been a special mark of favour, a +condescension to acknowledge his use for me as a guardian. He did not +speak at all on this occasion. + +I did not call for him in the afternoon; I had made other plans. I +wanted to see the man Challis, whose library had been at the disposal of +this astonishing child. Challis might be able to give me further +information. The truth of the matter is that I was in two minds as to +whether I would stay at Pym through the summer, as I had originally +intended. I was not in love with the prospect which the sojourn now held +out for me. If I were to be constituted head nursemaid to Master Victor +Stott, there would remain insufficient time for the progress of my own +book on certain aspects of the growth of the philosophic method. + +I see now, when I look back, that I was not convinced at that time, that +I still doubted the Wonder's learning. I may have classed it as a +freakish pedantry, the result of an unprecedented memory. + +Mrs. Berridge had much information to impart on the subject of Henry +Challis. He was her husband's landlord, of course, and his was a +hallowed name, to be spoken with decency and respect. I am afraid I +shocked Mrs. Berridge at the outset by my casual "Who's this man +Challis?" She certainly atoned by her own manner for my irreverence; she +very obviously tried to impress me. I professed submission, but was not +intimidated, rather my curiosity was aroused. + +Mrs. Berridge was not able to tell me the one thing I most desired to +know, whether the lord of Challis Court was in residence; but it was not +far to walk, and I set out about two o'clock. + + +VII + +Challis was getting into his motor as I walked up the drive. I hurried +forward to catch him before the machine was started. He saw me coming +and paused on the doorstep. + +"Did you want to see me?" he asked, as I came up. + +"Mr. Challis?" I asked. + +"Yes," he said. + +"I won't keep you now," I said, "but perhaps you could let me know some +time when I could see you." + +"Oh, yes," he said, with the air of a man who is constantly subjected to +annoyance by strangers. "But perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me what +it is you wish to see me about? I might be able to settle it now, at +once." + +"I am staying at the Wood Farm," I began. "I am interested in a very +remarkable child----" + +"Ah! take my advice, leave him alone," interrupted Challis quickly. + +I suppose I looked my amazement, for Challis laughed. "Oh, well," he +said, "of course you won't take such spontaneous advice as that. I'm in +no hurry. Come in." He took off his heavy overcoat and threw it into the +tonneau. "Come round again in an hour," he said to the chauffeur. + +"It's very good of you," I protested, "I could come quite well at any +other time." + +"I'm in no hurry," he repeated. "You had better come to the scene of +Victor Stott's operations. He hasn't been here for six weeks, by the +way. Can you throw any light on his absence?" + +I made a friend that afternoon. When the car came back at four o'clock, +Challis sent it away again. "I shall probably stay down here to-night," +he said to the butler, and to me: "Can you stay to dinner? I must +convince you about this child." + +"I have dined once to-day," I said. "At half-past twelve. I have no +other excuse." + +"Oh! well," said Challis, "you needn't eat, but I must. Get us +something, Heathcote," he said to the butler, "and bring tea here." + +Much of our conversation after dinner was not relevant to the subject of +the Wonder; we drifted into a long argument upon human origins which has +no place here. But by that time I had been very well informed as to all +the essential facts of the Wonder's childhood, of his entry into the +world of books, of his earlier methods, and of the significance of that +long speech in the library. But at that point Challis became reserved. +He would give me no details. + +"You must forgive me; I can't go into that," he said. + +"But it is so incomparably important," I protested. + +"That may be, but you must not question me. The truth of the matter is +that I have a very confused memory of what the boy said, and the little +I might remember, I prefer to leave undisturbed." + +He piqued my curiosity, but I did not press him. It was so evident that +he did not wish to speak on that head. + +He walked up with me to the farm at ten o'clock and came into my room. + +"We need not keep you out of bed, Mrs. Berridge," he said to my +flustered landlady. "I daresay we shall be up till all hours. We promise +to see that the house is locked up." Mr. Berridge stood a figure of +subservience in the background. + +My books were still heaped on the floor. Challis sat down on the +window-sill and looked over some of them. "Many of these Master Stott +probably read in my library," he remarked, "in German. Language is no +bar to him. He learns a language as you or I would learn a page of +history." + +Later on, I remember that we came down to essentials. "I must try and +understand something of this child's capacities," I said in answer to a +hint of Challis's that I should leave the Wonder alone. "It seems to me +that here we have something which is of the first importance, of greater +importance, indeed, than anything else in the history of the world." + +"But you can't make him speak," said Challis. + +"I shall try," I said. "I recognise that we cannot compel him, but I +have a certain hold over him. I see from what you have told me that he +has treated me with most unusual courtesy. I assure you that several +times when I spoke to him this morning he nodded his head." + +"A good beginning," laughed Challis. + +"I can't understand," I went on, "how it is that you are not more +interested. It seems to me that this child knows many things which we +have been patiently attempting to discover since the dawn of +civilisation." + +"Quite," said Challis. "I admit that, but ... well, I don't think I want +to know." + +"Surely," I said, "this key to all knowledge----" + +"We are not ready for it," replied Challis. "You can't teach metaphysics +to children." + +Nevertheless my ardour was increased, not abated, by my long talk with +Challis. + +"I shall go on," I said, as I went out to the farm gate with him at +half-past two in the morning. + +"Ah! well," he answered, "I shall come over and see you when I get +back." He had told me earlier that he was going abroad for some months. + +We hesitated a moment by the gate, and instinctively we both looked up +at the vault of the sky and the glimmering dust of stars. + +The same thought was probably in both our minds, the thought of the +insignificance of this little system that revolves round one of the +lesser lights of the Milky Way, but that thought was not to be expressed +save by some banality, and we did not speak. + +"I shall certainly look you up when I come back," said Challis. + +"Yes; I hope you will," I said lamely. + +I watched the loom of his figure against the vague background till I +could distinguish it no longer. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE PROGRESS AND RELAXATION OF MY SUBJECTION + + +I + +The memory of last summer is presented to me now as a series of +pictures, some brilliant, others vague, others again so uncertain that I +cannot be sure how far they are true memories of actual occurrences, and +how far they are interwoven with my thoughts and dreams. I have, for +instance, a recollection of standing on Deane Hill and looking down over +the wide panorama of rural England, through a driving mist of fine rain. +This might well be counted among true memories, were it not for the fact +that clearly associated with the picture is an image of myself grown to +enormous dimensions, a Brocken spectre that threatened the world with +titanic gestures of denouncement, and I seem to remember that this +figure was saying: "All life runs through my fingers like a handful of +dry sand." And yet the remembrance has not the quality of a dream. + +I was, undoubtedly, overwrought at times. There were days when the +sight of a book filled me with physical nausea, with contempt for the +littleness, the narrow outlook, that seemed to me to characterise every +written work. I was fiercely, but quite impotently, eager at such times +to demonstrate the futility of all the philosophy ranged on the rough +wooden shelves in my gloomy sitting-room. I would walk up and down and +gesticulate, struggling, fighting to make clear to myself what a true +philosophy should set forth. I felt at such times that all the knowledge +I needed for so stupendous a task was present with me in some +inexplicable way, was even pressing upon me, but that my brain was so +clogged and heavy that not one idea of all that priceless wisdom could +be expressed in clear thought. "I have never been taught to think," I +would complain, "I have never perfected the machinery of thought," and +then some dictum thrown out haphazard by the Wonder--his conception of +light conversation--would recur to me, and I would realise that however +well I had been trained, my limitations would remain, that I was an +undeveloped animal, only one stage higher than a totem-fearing savage, a +creature of small possibilities, incapable of dealing with great +problems. + +Once the Wonder said to me, in a rare moment of lucid condescension to +my feeble intellect, "You figure space as a void in three dimensions, +and time as a line that runs across it, and all other conceptions you +relegate to that measure." He implied that this was a cumbrous machinery +which had no relation to reality, and could define nothing. He told me +that his idea of force, for example, was a pure abstraction, for which +there was no figure in my mental outfit. + +Such pronouncements as these left me struggling like a drowning man in +deep water. I felt that it _must_ be possible for me to come to the +surface, but I could do nothing but flounder; beating fiercely with +limbs that were so powerful and yet so utterly useless. I saw that my +very metaphors symbolised my feebleness; I had no terms for my own +mental condition; I was forced to resort to some inapplicable physical +analogy. + +These fits of revolt against the limitations of human thought grew more +frequent as the summer progressed. Day after day my self-sufficiency and +conceit were being crushed out of me. I was always in the society of a +boy of seven whom I was forced to regard as immeasurably my intellectual +superior. There was no department of useful knowledge in which I could +compete with him. Compete indeed! I might as well speak of a +third-standard child competing with Macaulay in a general knowledge +paper. + +"_Useful_ knowledge," I have written, but the phrase needs definition. I +might have taught the Wonder many things, no doubt; the habits of men +in great cities, the aspects of foreign countries, or the subtleties of +cricket; but when I was with him I felt--and my feelings must have been +typical--that such things as these were of no account. + +Towards the end of the summer, the occasions upon which I was able to +stimulate myself into a condition of bearable complacency were very +rare. I often thought of Challis's advice to leave the Wonder alone. I +should have gone away if I had been free, but Victor Stott had a use for +me, and I was powerless to disobey him. I feared him, but he controlled +me at his will. I feared him as I had once feared an imaginary God, but +I did not hate him. + +One curious little fragment of wisdom came to me as the result of my +experience--a useless fragment perhaps, but something that has in one +way altered my opinion of my fellow-men. I have learnt that a measure of +self-pride, of complacency, is essential to every human being. I judge +no man any more for displaying an overweening vanity, rather do I envy +him this representative mark of his humanity. The Wonder was completely +and quite inimitably devoid of any conceit, and the word ambition had no +meaning for him. It was inconceivable that he should compare himself +with any of his fellow-creatures, and it was inconceivable that any +honour they might have lavished upon him would have given him one +moment's pleasure. He was entirely alone among aliens who were unable to +comprehend him, aliens who could not flatter him, whose opinions were +valueless to him. He had no more common ground on which to air his +knowledge, no more grounds for comparison by which to achieve +self-conceit than a man might have in a world tenanted only by sheep. +From what I have heard him say on the subject of our slavery to +preconceptions, I think the metaphor of sheep is one which he might have +approved. + +But the result of all this, so far as I am concerned, is a feeling of +admiration for those men who are capable of such magnificent approval +for themselves, the causes they espouse, their family, their country, +and their species; it is an approval which I fear I can never again +attain in full measure. + +I have seen possibilities which have enforced a humbleness that is not +good for my happiness nor conducive to my development. Henceforward I +will espouse the cause of vanity. It is only the vain who deprecate +vanity in others. + +But there were times in the early period of my association with Victor +Stott when I rebelled vigorously against his complacent assumption of my +ignorance. + + +II + +May was a gloriously fine month, and we were much out of doors. +Unfortunately, except for one fortnight in August, that was all the +settled weather we had that summer. + +I remember sitting one afternoon staring at the same pond that Ginger +Stott had stared at when he told me that the boy now beside me was a +"blarsted freak." + +The Wonder had said nothing that day, but now he began to enunciate some +of his incomprehensible commonplaces in that thin, clear voice of his. I +wrote down what I could remember of his utterances when I went home, but +now I read them over again I am exceedingly doubtful whether I reported +him correctly. There is, however, one dictum which seems clearly +phrased, and when I recall the scene, I remember trying to push the +induction he had started. The pronouncement, as I have it written, is as +follows: + +"Pure deduction from a single premiss, unaided by previous knowledge of +the functions of the terms used in the expansion of the argument, is an +act of creation, incontrovertible, and outside the scope of human +reasoning." + +I believe he meant to say--but my notes are horribly confused--that +logic and philosophy were only relative, being dependent always in a +greater or less degree upon the test of a material experiment for +verification. + +Here, as always, I find the Wonder's pronouncements very elusive. In one +sense I see that what I have quoted here is a self-evident proposition, +but I have the feeling that behind it there lies some gleam of wisdom +which throws a faint light on the profound problem of existence. + +I remember that in my own feeble way I tried to analyse this statement, +and for a time I thought I had grasped one significant aspect of it. It +seemed to me that the possibility of conceiving a philosophy that was +not dependent for verification upon material experiment--that is to say, +upon evidence afforded by the five senses--indicates that there is +something which is not matter; but that since the development of such a +philosophy is not possible to our minds, we must argue that our +dependence upon matter is so intimate that it is almost impossible to +conceive that we are actuated by any impulse which does not arise out of +a material complex. + +At the back of my mind there seemed to be a thought that I could not +focus, I trembled on the verge of some great revelation that never came. + +Through my thoughts there ran a thread of reverence for the intelligence +that had started my speculations. If only he could speak in terms that +I could understand. + +I looked round at the Wonder. He was, as usual, apparently lost in +abstraction, and quite unconscious of my regard. + +The wind was strong on the Common, and he sniffed once or twice and then +wiped his nose. He did not use a handkerchief. + +It came to me at the moment that he was no more than a vulgar little +village boy. + + +III + +There were few incidents to mark the progress of that summer. I marked +the course of time by my own thoughts and feelings, especially by my +growing submission to the control of the Wonder. + +It was curious to recall that I had once thought of correcting the +Wonder's manners, of administering, perhaps, a smacking. That was a +fault of ignorance. I had often erred in the same way in other +experiences of life, but I had not taken the lesson to heart. I remember +at school our "head" taking us--I was in the lower fifth then--in Latin +verse. He rebuked me for a false quantity, and I, very cocksure, +disputed the point and read my line. The head pointed out very gravely +that I had been misled by an English analogy in my pronunciation of the +word "maritus," and I grew very hot and ashamed and apologetic. I feel +much the same now when I think of my early attitude towards the Wonder. +But this time, I think, I have profited by my experience. + +There is, however, one incident which in the light of subsequent events +it seems worth while to record. + +One afternoon in early July, when the sky had lifted sufficiently for us +to attempt some sort of a walk, we made our way down through the sodden +woods in the direction of Deane Hill. + +As we were emerging into the lane at the foot of the slope, I saw the +Harrison idiot lurking behind the trunk of a big beech. This was only +the third time I had seen him since I drove him away from the farm, and +on the two previous occasions he had not come close to us. + +This time he had screwed up his courage to follow us. As we climbed the +lane I saw him slouching up the hedge-side behind us. + +The Wonder took no notice, and we continued our way in silence. + +When we reached the prospect at the end of the hill, where the ground +falls away like a cliff and you have a bird's-eye view of two counties, +we sat down on the steps of the monument erected in honour of those +Hampdenshire men whose lives were thrown away in the South-African war. + +That view always has a soothing effect upon me, and I gave myself up to +an ecstasy of contemplation and forgot, for a few moments, the presence +of the Wonder, and the fact that the idiot had followed us. + +I was recalled to existence by the sound of a foolish, conciliatory +mumbling, and looked round to see the leering face of the Harrison idiot +ogling the Wonder from the corner of the plinth. The Wonder was between +me and the idiot, but he was apparently oblivious of either of us. + +I was about to rise and drive the idiot away, but the Wonder, still +staring out at some distant horizon, said quietly, "Let him be." + +I was astonished, but I sat still and awaited events. + +The idiot behaved much as I have seen a very young and nervous puppy +behave. + +He came within a few feet of us, gurgling and crooning, flapping his +hands and waggling his great head; his uneasy eyes wandered from the +Wonder to me and back again, but it was plainly the Wonder whom he +wished to propitiate. Then he suddenly backed as if he had dared too +much, flopped on to the wet grass and regarded us both with foolish, +goggling eyes. For a few seconds he lay still, and then he began to +squirm along the ground towards us, a few inches at a time, stopping +every now and again to bleat and gurgle with that curious, crooning +note which he appeared to think would pacificate the object of his +overtures. + +I stood by, as it were; ready to obey the first hint that the presence +of this horrible creature was distasteful to the Wonder, but he gave no +sign. + +The idiot had come within five or six feet of us, wriggling himself +along the wet grass, before the Wonder looked at him. The look when it +came was one of those deliberate, intentional stares which made one feel +so contemptible and insignificant. + +The idiot evidently regarded this look as a sign of encouragement. He +knelt up, began to flap his hands and changed his crooning note to a +pleased, emphatic bleat. + +"A-ba-ba," he blattered, and made uncouth gestures, by which I think he +meant to signify that he wanted the Wonder to come and play with him. + +Still the Wonder gave no sign, but his gaze never wavered, and though +the idiot was plainly not intimidated, he never met that gaze for more +than a second or two. Nevertheless he came on, walking now on his knees, +and at last stretched out a hand to touch the boy he so curiously +desired for a playmate. + +That broke the spell. The Wonder drew back quickly--he never allowed one +to touch him--got up and climbed two or three steps higher up the base +of the monument. "Send him away," he said to me. + +"That'll do," I said threateningly to the idiot, and at the sound of my +voice and the gesture of my hand, he blenched, yelped, rolled over away +from me, and then got to his feet and shambled off for several yards +before stopping to regard us once more with his pacificatory, disgusting +ogle. + +"Send him away," repeated the Wonder, as I hesitated, and I rose to my +feet and pretended to pick up a stone. + +That was enough. The idiot yelped again and made off. This time he did +not stop, though he looked over his shoulder several times as he +lolloped away among the low gorse, to which look I replied always with +the threat of an imaginary stone. + +The Wonder made no comment on the incident as we walked home. He had +shown no sign of fear. It occurred to me that my guardianship of him was +merely a convenience, not a protection from any danger. + + +IV + +As time went on it became increasingly clear to me that my chance of +obtaining the Wonder's confidence was becoming more and more remote. + +At first he had replied to my questions; usually, it is true, by no more +than an inclination of his head, but he soon ceased to make even this +acknowledgment of my presence. + +So I fell by degrees into a persistent habit of silence, admitted my +submission by obtruding neither remark nor question upon my constant +companion, and gave up my intention of using the Wonder as a means to +gratify my curiosity concerning the problem of existence. + +Once or twice I saw Crashaw at a distance. He undoubtedly recognised the +Wonder, and I think he would have liked to come up and rebuke +him--perhaps me, also; but probably he lacked the courage. He would +hover within sight of us for a few minutes, scowling, and then stalk +away. He gave me the impression of being a dangerous man, a thwarted +fanatic, brooding over his defeat. If I had been Mrs. Stott, I should +have feared the intrusion of Crashaw more than the foolish overtures of +the Harrison idiot. But there was, of course, the Wonder's compelling +power to be reckoned with, in the case of Crashaw. + + +V + +Challis came back in early September, and it was he who first coaxed, +and then goaded me into rebellion. + +Challis did not come too soon. + +At the end of August I was seeing visions, not pleasant, inspiriting +visions, but the indefinite, perplexing shapes of delirium. + +I think it must have been in August that I stood on Deane Hill, through +an afternoon of fine, driving rain, and had a vision of myself playing +tricks with the sands of life. + +I had begun to lose my hold on reality. Silence, contemplation, a +long-continued wrestle with the profound problems of life, were +combining to break up the intimacy of life and matter, and my brain was +not of the calibre to endure the strain. + +Challis saw at once what ailed me. + +He came up to the farm one morning at twelve o'clock. The date was, I +believe, the twelfth of September. It was a brooding, heavy morning, +with half a gale of wind blowing from the south-west, but it had not +rained, and I was out with the Wonder when Challis arrived. + +He waited for me and talked to the flattered Mrs. Berridge, remonstrated +kindly with her husband for his neglect of the farm, and incidentally +gave him a rebate on the rent. + +When I came in, he insisted that I should come to lunch with him at +Challis Court. + +I consented, but stipulated that I must be back at Pym by three o'clock +to accompany the Wonder for his afternoon walk. + +Challis looked at me curiously, but allowed the stipulation. + +We hardly spoke as we walked down the hill--the habit of silence had +grown upon me, but after lunch Challis spoke out his mind. + +On that occasion I hardly listened to him, but he came up to the farm +again after tea and marched me off to dinner at the Court. I was +strangely plastic when commanded, but when he suggested that I should +give up my walks with the Wonder, go away ... I smiled and said +"Impossible," as though that ended the matter. + +Challis, however, persisted, and I suppose I was not too far gone to +listen to him. I remember his saying: "That problem is not for you or me +or any man living to solve by introspection. Our work is to add +knowledge little by little, data here and there, for future evidence." + +The phrase struck me, because the Wonder had once said "There are no +data," when in the early days I had asked him whether he could say +definitely if there was any future existence possible for us? + +Now Challis put it to me that our work was to find data, that every +little item of real knowledge added to the feeble store man has +accumulated in his few thousand years of life, was a step, the greatest +step any man could possibly make. + +"But could we not get, not a small but a very important item, from +Victor Stott?" + +Challis shook his head. "He is too many thousands of years ahead of us," +he said. "We can only bridge the gap by many centuries of patient toil. +If a revelation were made to us, we should not understand it." + +So, by degrees, Challis's influence took possession of me and roused me +to self-assertion. + +One morning, half in dread, I stayed at home and read a novel--no other +reading could hold my attention--philosophy had become nauseating. + +I expected to see the strange little figure of the Wonder come across +the Common, but he never came, nor did I receive any reproach from Ellen +Mary. I think she had forgotten her fear of the Harrison idiot. + +Nevertheless, I did not give up my guardianship all at once. Three times +after that morning I took the Wonder for a walk. He made no allusion to +my defalcations. Indeed he never spoke. He relinquished me as he had +taken me up, without comment or any expression of feeling. + + +VI + +On the twenty-ninth of September I went down to Challis Court and stayed +there for a week. Then I returned for a few days to Wood Farm in order +to put my things together and pack my books. I had decided to go to +Cairo for the winter with Challis. + +At half-past one o'clock on Thursday, the eighth of October, I was in +the sitting-room, when I saw the figure of Mrs. Stott coming across the +Common. She came with a little stumbling run. I could see that she was +agitated even before she reached the farmyard gate. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +RELEASE + + +I + +She opened the front door without knocking, and came straight into my +sitting-room. + +"'E's not 'ere," she said in a manner that left it doubtful whether she +made an assertion or asked a question. + +"Your son?" I said. I had risen when she came into the room, "No; I +haven't seen him to-day." + +Ellen Mary was staring at me, but it was clear that she neither saw nor +heard me. She had a look of intense concentration. One could see that +she was calculating, thinking, thinking.... + +I went over to her and took her by the arm. I gently shook her. "Now, +tell me what's the matter? What has happened?" I asked. + +She made an effort to collect herself, loosened her arm from my hold and +with an instinctive movement pushed forward the old bonnet, which had +slipped to the back of her head. + +"'E 'asn't been in to 'is dinner," she said hurriedly. "I've been on +the Common looking for 'im." + +"He may have made a mistake in the time," I suggested. + +She made a movement as though to push me on one side, and turned towards +the door. She was calculating again. Her expression said quite plainly, +"Could he be there, could he be _there_?" + +"Come, come," I said, "there is surely no need to be anxious yet." + +She turned on me. "'E never makes a mistake in the time," she said +fiercely, "'e always knows the time to the minute without clock or +watch. Why did you leave 'im alone?" + +She broke off in her attack upon me and continued: "'E's never been late +before, not a minute, and now it's a hour after 'is time." + +"He may be at home by now," I said. She took the hint instantly and +started back again with the same stumbling little run. + +I picked up my hat and followed her. + + +II + +The Wonder was not at the cottage. + +"Now, my dear woman, you must keep calm," I said. "There is absolutely +no reason to be disturbed. You had better go to Challis Court and see if +he is in the library, I----" + +"I'm a fool," broke in Ellen Mary with sudden decision, and she set off +again without another word. I followed her back to the Common and +watched her out of sight. I was more disturbed about her than about the +non-appearance of the Wonder. He was well able to take care of himself, +but she.... How strange that with all her calculations she had not +thought of going to Challis Court, to the place where her son had spent +so many days. I began to question whether the whole affair was not, in +some way, a mysterious creation of her own disordered brain. + +Nevertheless, I took upon myself to carry out that part of the programme +which I had not been allowed to state in words to Mrs. Stott, and set +out for Deane Hill. It was just possible that the Wonder might have +slipped down that steep incline and injured himself. Possible, but very +unlikely; the Wonder did not take the risks common to boys of his age, +he did not disport himself on dangerous slopes. + +As I walked I felt a sense of lightness, of relief from depression. I +had not been this way by myself since the end of August. It was good to +be alone and free. + +The day was fine and not cold, though the sun was hidden. I noticed that +the woods showed scarcely a mark of autumn decline. + +There was not a soul to be seen by the monument. I scrambled down the +slope and investigated the base of the hill and came back another way +through the woods. I saw no one. I stopped continually and whistled +loudly. If he is anywhere near at hand, I thought, and in trouble, he +will hear that and answer me. I did not call him by name. I did not know +what name to call. It would have seemed absurd to have called "Victor." +No one ever addressed him by name. + +My return route brought me back to the south edge of the Common, the +point most remote from the farm. There I met a labourer whom I knew by +sight, a man named Hawke. He was carrying a stick, and prodding with it +foolishly among the furze and gorse bushes. The bracken was already +dying down. + +"What are you looking for?" I asked. + +"It's this 'ere Master Stott, sir," he said, looking up. "'E's got +loarst seemingly." + +I felt a sudden stab of self-reproach. I had been taking things too +easily. I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to four. + +"Mr. Challis 'ave told me to look for 'un," added the man, and continued +his aimless prodding of the gorse. + +"Where is Mr. Challis?" I asked. + +"'E's yonder, soomewheres." He made a vague gesture in the direction of +Pym. + +The sun had come out, and the Common was all aglow. I hastened towards +the village. + +On the way I met Farmer Bates and two or three labourers. They, too, +were beating among the gorse and brown bracken. They told me that Mr. +Challis was at the cottage and I hurried on. All the neighbourhood, it +seems, was searching for the Wonder. In the village I saw three or four +women standing with aprons over their heads, talking together. + +I had never seen Pym so animated. + + +III + +I met Challis in the lane. He was coming away from Mrs. Stott's cottage. + +"Have you found him?" I asked stupidly. I knew quite well that the +Wonder was not found, and yet I had a fond hope that I might, +nevertheless, be mistaken. + +Challis shook his head. "There will be a mad woman in that cottage if he +doesn't come back by nightfall," he remarked with a jerk of his head. +"I've done what I can for her." + +I explained that I had been over to Deane Hill, searching and calling. + +"You didn't see anything?" asked Challis, echoing my foolish query of a +moment before. I shook my head. + +We were both agitated without doubt. + +We soon came up with Farmer Bates and his men. They stopped and touched +their hats when they saw us, and we put the same silly question to them. + +"You haven't found him?" We knew perfectly well that they would have +announced the fact at once if they had found him. + +"One of you go over to the Court and get any man you can find to come +and help," said Challis. "Tell Heathcote to send every one." + +One of the labourers touched his cap again, and started off at once with +a lumbering trot. + +Challis and I walked on in silence, looking keenly about us and stopping +every now and then and calling. We called "Hallo! Hallo-o!" It was an +improvement upon my whistle. + +"He's such a little chap," muttered Challis once; "it would be so easy +to miss him if he were unconscious." + +It struck me that the reference to the Wonder was hardly sufficiently +respectful. I had never thought of him as "a little chap." But Challis +had not known him so intimately as I had. + +The shadows were fast creeping over the Common. At the woodside it was +already twilight. The whole of the western sky right up to the zenith +was a finely shaded study in brilliant orange and yellow. "More rain," I +thought instinctively, and paused for a moment to watch the sunset. The +black distance stood clearly silhouetted against the sky. One could +discern the sharp outline of tiny trees on the distant horizon. + +We met Heathcote and several other men in the lane. + +"Shan't be able to do much to-night, sir," said Heathcote. "It'll be +dark in 'alf an hour, sir." + +"Well, do what you can in half an hour," replied Challis, and to me he +said, "You'd better come back with me. We've done what we can." + +I had a picture of him then as the magnate; I had hardly thought of him +in that light before. The arduous work of the search he could delegate +to his inferiors. Still, he had come out himself, and I doubt not that +he had been altogether charming to the bewildered, distraught mother. + +I acquiesced in his suggestion. I was beginning to feel very tired. + +Mrs. Heathcote was at the gate when we arrived at the Court. "'Ave they +found 'im, sir?" she asked. + +"Not yet," replied Challis. + +I followed him into the house. + + +IV + +As I walked back at ten o'clock it was raining steadily. I had refused +the offer of a trap. I went through the dark and sodden wood, and +lingered and listened. The persistent tap, tap, tap of the rain on the +leaves irritated me. How could one hear while that noise was going on? +There was no other sound. There was not a breath of wind. Only that +perpetual tap, tap, tap, patter, patter, drip, tap, tap. It seemed as if +it might go on through eternity.... + +I went to the Stotts' cottage, though I knew there could be no news. +Challis had given strict instructions that any news should be brought to +him immediately. If it was bad news it was to be brought to him before +the mother was told. + +There was a light burning in the cottage, and the door was set wide +open. + +I went up to the door but I did not go in. + +Ellen Mary was sitting in a high chair, her hands clasped together, and +she rocked continually to and fro. She made no sound; she merely rocked +herself with a steady, regular persistence. + +She did not see me standing at the open door, and I moved quietly away. + +As I walked over the Common--I avoided the wood deliberately--I wondered +what was the human limit of endurance. I wondered whether Ellen Mary +had not reached that limit. + +Mrs. Berridge had not gone to bed, and there were some visitors in the +kitchen. I heard them talking. Mrs. Berridge came out when I opened the +front door. + +"Any news, sir?" she asked. + +"No; no news," I said. I had been about to ask her the same question. + + +V + +I did not go to sleep for some time. I had a picture of Ellen Mary +before my eyes, and I could still hear that steady pat, patter, drip, of +the rain on the beech leaves. + +In the night I awoke suddenly, and thought I heard a long, wailing cry +out on the Common. I got up and looked out of the window, but I could +see nothing. The rain was still falling, but there was a blur of light +that showed where the moon was shining behind the clouds. The cry, if +there had been a cry, was not repeated. + +I went back to bed and soon fell asleep again. + +I do not know whether I had been dreaming, but I woke suddenly with a +presentation of the little pond on the Common very clear before me. + +"We never looked in the pond," I thought, and then--"but he could not +have fallen into the pond; besides, it's not two feet deep." + +It was full daylight, and I got up and found that it was nearly seven +o'clock. + +The rain had stopped, but there was a scurry of low, threatening cloud +that blew up from the south. + +I dressed at once and went out. I made my way directly to the Stotts' +cottage. + +The lamp was still burning and the door open, but Ellen Mary had fallen +forward on to the table; her head was pillowed on her arms. + +"There _is_ a limit to our endurance," I reflected, "and she has reached +it." + +I left her undisturbed. + +Outside I met two of Farmer Bates's labourers going back to work. + +"I want you to come up with me to the pond," I said. + + +VI + +The pond was very full. + +On the side from which we approached, the ground sloped gradually, and +the water was stretching out far beyond its accustomed limits. + +On the farther side the gorse among the trunks of the three ash-trees +came right to the edge of the bank. On that side the bank was three or +four feet high. + +We came to the edge of the pond, and one of the labourers waded in a +little way--the water was very shallow on that side--but we could see +nothing for the scum of weed, little spangles of dirty green, and a mass +of some other plant that had borne a little white flower in the earlier +part of the year--stuff like dwarf hemlock. + +Under the farther bank, however, I saw one comparatively clear space of +black water. + +"Let's go round," I said, and led the way. + +There was a tiny path which twisted between the gorse roots and came out +at the edge of the farther bank by the stem of the tallest ash. I had +seen tiny village boys pretending to fish from this point with a stick +and a piece of string. There was a dead branch of ash some five or six +feet long, with the twigs partly twisted off; it was lying among the +bushes. I remembered that I had seen small boys using this branch to +clear away the surface weed. I picked it up and took it with me. + +I wound one arm round the trunk of the ash, and peered over into the +water under the bank. + +I caught sight of something white under the water. I could not see +distinctly. I thought it was a piece of broken ware--the bottom of a +basin. I had picked up the ash stick and was going to probe the deeper +water with it. Then I saw that the dim white object was globular. + +The end of my stick was actually in the water. I withdrew it quickly, +and threw it behind me. + +My heart began to throb painfully. + +I turned my face away and leaned against the ash-tree. + +"Can you see anythin'?" asked one of the labourers who had come up +behind me. + +"Oh! Christ!" I said. I turned quickly from the pond and pressed a way +through the gorse. + +I was overwhelmingly and disgustingly sick. + + +VII + +By degrees the solid earth ceased to wave and sway before me like a +rolling heave of water, and I looked up, pressing my hands to my +head--my hands were as cold as death. + +My clothes were wet and muddy where I had lain on the sodden ground. I +got to my feet and instinctively began to brush at the mud. + +I was still a little giddy, and I swayed and sought for support. + +I could see the back of one labourer. He was kneeling by the ash-tree +bending right down over the water. The other man was standing in the +pond, up to his waist in water and mud. I could just see his head and +shoulders.... + +I staggered away in the direction of the village. + + +VIII + +I found Ellen Mary still sitting in the same chair. The lamp was +fluttering to extinction, the flame leaping spasmodically, dying down +till it seemed that it had gone out, and then again suddenly flickering +up with little clicking bursts of flame. The air reeked intolerably of +paraffin. + +I blew the lamp out and pushed it on one side. + +There was no need to break the news to Ellen Mary. She had known last +night, and now she was beyond the reach of information. + +She sat upright in her chair and stared out into the immensity. Her +hands alone moved, and they were not still for an instant. They lay in +her lap, and her fingers writhed and picked at her dress. + +I spoke to her once, but I knew that her mind was beyond the reach of my +words. + +"It is just as well," I thought; "but we must get her away." + +I went out and called to the woman next door. + +She was in her kitchen, but the door was open. She came out when I +knocked. + +"Poor thing," she said, when I told her. "It _'as_ been a shock, no +doubt. She was so wrapped hup in the boy." + +She could hardly have said less if her neighbour had lost half-a-crown. + +"Get her into your cottage before they come," I said harshly, and left +her. + +I wanted to get out of the lane before the men came back, but I had +hardly started before I saw them coming. + +They had made a chair of their arms, and were carrying him between them. +They had not the least fear of him, now. + + +IX + +The Harrison idiot suddenly jumped out of the hedge. + +I put my hand to my throat. I wanted to cry out, to stop him, but I +could not move. I felt sick again, and utterly weak and powerless, and I +could not take my gaze from that little doll with the great drooping +head that rolled as the men walked. + +I was reminded, disgustingly, of children with a guy. + +The idiot ran shambling down the lane. He knew the two men, who +tolerated him and laughed at him. He was not afraid of them nor their +burden. + +He came right up to them. I heard one of the men say gruffly, "Now then, +you cut along off!" + +I believe the idiot must have touched the dead body. + +I was gripping my throat in my hand; I was trying desperately to cry +out. + +Whether the idiot actually touched the body or not I cannot say, but he +must have realised in his poor, bemused brain that the thing was dead. + +He cried out with his horrible, inhuman cry, turned, and ran up the lane +towards me. He fell on his face a few yards from me, scrambled wildly to +his feet again and came on yelping and shrieking. He was wildly, +horribly afraid. I caught sight of his face as he passed me, and his +mouth was distorted into a square, his upper lip horribly drawn up over +his ragged, yellow teeth. Suddenly he dashed at the hedge and clawed his +way through. I heard him still yelping appallingly as he rushed away +across the field.... + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +IMPLICATIONS + + +I + +The jury returned a verdict of "Accidental death." + +If there had been any traces of a struggle, I had not noticed them when +I came to the edge of the pond. There may have been marks as if a foot +had slipped. I was not thinking of evidence when I looked into the +water. + +There were marks enough when the police came to investigate, but they +were the marks made by a twelve-stone man in hobnail boots, who had +scrambled into, and out of, the pond. As the inspector said, it was not +worth while wasting any time in looking for earlier traces of footsteps +below those marks. + +Nor were there any signs of violence on the body. It was in no way +disfigured, save by the action of the water, in which it had lain for +perhaps eighteen hours. + +There was, indeed, only one point of any significance from the jury's +point of view, and that they put on one side, if they considered it at +all; the body was pressed into the mud. + +The Coroner asked a few questions about this fact. + +Was the mud very soft? Yes, very soft, liquid on top. + +How was the body lying? Face downwards. + +What part of the body was deepest in the mud? The chest. The witness +said he had hard work to get the upper part of the body released; the +head was free, but the mud held the rest. "The mooad soocked like," was +the expressive phrase of the witness. + +The Coroner passed on to other things. Had any one a spite against the +child? and such futilities. Only once more did he revert to that +solitary significant fact. "Would it be possible," he asked of the +abashed and self-conscious labourer, "would it be possible for the body +to have worked its way down into the soft mud as you have described it +to have been found?" + +"We-el," said the witness, "'twas in the stacky mooad, 'twas through the +sarft stoof." + +"But this soft mud would suck any solid body down, would it not?" +persisted the Coroner. + +And the witness recalled the case of a duck that had been sucked into +the same soft pond mud the summer before, and cited the instance. He +forgot to add that on that occasion the mud had not been under water. + +The Coroner accepted the instance. There can be no question that both he +and the jury were anxious to accept the easier explanation. + + +II + +But I know perfectly well that the Wonder did not fall into the pond by +accident. + +I should have known, even if that conclusive evidence with regard to his +being pushed into the mud had never come to light. + +He may have stood by the ash-tree and looked into the water, but he +would never have fallen. He was too perfectly controlled; and, with all +his apparent abstraction, no one was ever more alive to the detail of +his surroundings. He and I have walked together perforce in many +slippery places, but I have never known him to fall or even begin to +lose his balance, whereas I have gone down many times. + +Yes; I know that he was pushed into the pond, and I know that he was +held down in the mud, most probably by the aid of that ash stick I had +held. But it was not for me to throw suspicion on any one at that +inquest, and I preferred to keep my thoughts and my inferences to +myself. I should have done so, even if I had been in possession of +stronger evidence. + +I hope that it was the Harrison idiot who was to blame. He was not +dangerous in the ordinary sense, but he might quite well have done the +thing in play--as he understood it. Only I cannot quite understand his +pushing the body down after it fell. That seems to argue +vindictiveness--and a logic which I can hardly attribute to the idiot. +Still, who can tell what went on in the distorted mind of that poor +creature? He is reported to have rescued the dead body of a rabbit from +the undergrowth on one occasion, and to have blubbered when he could not +bring it back to life. + +There is but one other person who could have been implicated, and I +hesitate to name him in this place. Yet one remembers what terrific acts +of misapplied courage and ferocious brutality the fanatics of history +have been capable of performing when their creed and their authority +have been set at naught. + + +III + +Ellen Mary never recovered her sanity. She died a few weeks ago in the +County Asylum. I hear that her husband attended the funeral. When she +lost her belief in the supernal wisdom and power of her god, her world +must have fallen about her. The thing she had imagined to be solid, +real, everlasting, had proved to be friable and destructible like all +other human building. + + +IV + +The Wonder is buried in Chilborough churchyard. + +You may find the place by its proximity to the great marble mausoleum +erected over the remains of Sir Edward Bigg, the well-known brewer and +philanthropist. + +The grave of Victor Stott is marked by a small stone, some six inches +high, which is designed to catch the foot rather than the eye of the +seeker. + +The stone bears the initials "V. S.," and a date--no more. + + +V + +I saw the Wonder before he was buried. + +I went up into the little bedroom and looked at him in his tiny coffin. + +I was no longer afraid of him. His power over me was dissipated. He was +no greater and no less than any other dead thing. + +It was the same with every one. He had become that "poor little boy of +Mrs. Stott's." No one spoke of him with respect now. No one seemed to +remember that he had been in any way different from other "poor little +fellows" who had died an untimely death. + +One thing did strike me as curious. The idiot, the one person who had +never feared him living, had feared him horribly when he was dead.... + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +EPILOGUE + + +THE USES OF MYSTERY + +Something Challis has told me; something I have learned for myself; and +there is something which has come to me from an unknown source. + +But here again we are confronted with the original difficulty--the +difficulty that for some conceptions there is no verbal figure. + +It is comprehensible, it is, indeed, obvious that the deeper abstract +speculation of the Wonder's thought cannot be set out by any metaphor +that would be understood by a lesser intelligence. + +We see that many philosophers, whose utterances have been recorded in +human history--that record which floats like a drop of oil on the +limitless ocean of eternity--have been confronted with this same +difficulty, and have woven an intricate and tedious design of words in +their attempt to convey some single conception--some conception which +themselves could see but dimly when disguised in the masquerade of +language; some figure that as it was limned grew ever more confused +beneath the wrappings of metaphor, so that we who read can glimpse +scarce a hint of its original shape and likeness. We see, also, that the +very philosophers who caricatured their own eidolon, became intrigued +with the logical abstraction of words and were led away into a +wilderness of barren deduction--their one inspired vision of a stable +premiss distorted and at last forgotten. + +How then shall we hope to find words to adumbrate a philosophy which +starts by the assumption that we can have no impression of reality until +we have rid ourselves of the interposing and utterly false concepts of +space and time, which delimit the whole world of human thought. + +I admit that one cannot even begin to do this thing; within our present +limitations our whole machinery of thought is built of these two +original concepts. They are the only gauges wherewith we may measure +every reality, every abstraction; wherewith we may give outline to any +image or process of the mind. Only when we endeavour to grapple with +that indeterminable mystery of consciousness can we conceive, however +dimly, some idea of a pure abstraction uninfluenced by and independent +of, those twin bases of our means of thought. + +Here it is that Challis has paused. Here he says that we must wait, that +no revelation can reveal what we are incapable of understanding, that +only by the slow process of evolution can we attain to any understanding +of the mystery we have sought to solve by our futile and primitive +hypotheses. + +"But then," I have pressed him, "why do you hesitate to speak of what +you heard on that afternoon?" + +And once he answered me: + +"I glimpsed a finality," he said, "and that appalled me. Don't you see +that ignorance is the means of our intellectual pleasure? It is the +solving of the problem that brings enjoyment--the solved problem has no +further interest. So when all is known, the stimulus for action ceases; +when all is known there is quiescence, nothingness. Perfect knowledge +implies the peace of death, implies the state of being one--our +pleasures are derived from action, from differences, from heterogeneity. + +"Oh! pity the child," said Challis, "for whom there could be no mystery. +Is not mystery the first and greatest joy of life? Beyond the gate there +is unexplored mystery for us in our childhood. When that is explored, +there are new and wonderful possibilities beyond the hills, then beyond +the seas, beyond the known world, in the everyday chances and movements +of the unknown life in which we are circumstanced. + +"Surely we should all perish through sheer inanity, or die desperately +by suicide if no mystery remained in the world. Mystery takes a thousand +beautiful shapes; it lurks even in the handiwork of man, in a stone god, +or in some mighty, intricate machine, incomprehensibly deliberate and +determined. The imagination endows the man-made thing with consciousness +and powers, whether of reservation or aloofness; the similitude of +meditation and profundity is wrought into stone. Is there not source for +mystery to the uninstructed in the great machine registering the +progress of its own achievement with each solemn, recurrent beat of its +metal pulse? + +"Behind all these things is the wonder of the imagination that never +approaches more nearly to the creation of a hitherto unknown image than +when it thus hesitates on the verge of mystery. + +"There is yet so much, so very much cause for wondering speculation. +Science gains ground so slowly. Slowly it has outlined, however vaguely, +the uncertainties of our origin so far as this world is concerned, while +the mystic has fought for his entrancing fairy tales one by one. + +"The mystic still holds his enthralling belief in the succession of +peoples who have risen and died--the succeeding world-races, red, black, +yellow, and white, which have in turn dominated this planet. Science +with its hammer and chisel may lay bare evidence, may collate material, +date man's appearance, call him the most recent of placental mammals, +trace his superstitions and his first conceptions of a god from the +elemental fears of the savage. But the mystic turns aside with an +assumption of superior knowledge; he waves away objective evidence; he +has a certainty impressed upon his mind. + +"And the mystic is a power. He compels a multitude of followers, because +he offers an attraction greater than the facts of science. He tells of a +mystery profounder than any problem solved by patient investigation, +because his mystery is incomprehensible even by himself; and in fear +lest any should comprehend it, he disguises the approach with an array +of lesser mysteries, man-made; with terminologies, symbologies and high +talk of esotericism too fearful for any save the initiate. + +"But we must preserve our mystic in some form against the awful time +when science shall have determined a limit; when the long history of +evolution shall be written in full, and every stage of world-building +shall be made plain. When the cycle of atomic dust to atomic dust is +demonstrated, and the detail of the life-process is taught and +understood, we shall have a fierce need for the mystic to save us from +the futility of a world we understand, to lie to us if need be, to +inspirit our material and regular minds with some breath of delicious +madness. We shall need the mystic then, or the completeness of our +knowledge will drive us at last to complete the dusty circle in our +eagerness to escape from a world we understand.... + +"See how man clings to his old and useless traditions; see how he +opposes at every step the awful force of progress. At each stage he +protests that the thing that is, is good, or that the thing that was and +has gone, was better. He despises new knowledge and fondly clings to the +belief that once men were greater than they now are. He looks back to +the more primitive, and endows it with that mystery he cannot find in +his own times. So have men ever looked lingeringly behind them. It is an +instinct, a great and wonderful inheritance that postpones the moment of +disillusionment. + +"We are still mercifully surrounded with the countless mysteries of +everyday experience, all the evidences of the unimaginable stimulus we +call life. Would you take them away? Would you resolve life into a +disease of the ether--a disease of which you and I, all life and all +matter, are symptoms? Would you teach that to the child, and explain to +him that the wonder of life and growth is no wonder, but a demonstrable +result of impeded force, to be evaluated by the application of an +adequate formula? + +"You and I," said Challis, "are children in the infancy of the world. +Let us to our play in the nursery of our own times. The day will come, +perhaps, when humanity shall have grown and will have to take upon +itself the heavy burden of knowledge. But you need not fear that that +will be in our day, nor in a thousand years. + +"Meanwhile leave us our childish fancies, our little imaginings, our +hope--children that we are--of those impossible mysteries beyond the +hills...." + + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wonder, by J. D. 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